Robinson Crusoe. Daniel Defoe

Bag of grain

It seemed to me that the cave was finished when suddenly the right side of the vault collapsed exactly where I began to dig an underground passage. I was also lucky that I was not crushed by the mass of soil - I was in a tent at that time. The collapse was serious and gave me a new job: it was necessary to remove all the earth and strengthen the vault, otherwise the incident could repeat itself.

For two days I did just this. He dug two piles into the floor of the cave and supported the vault with boards crosswise. Then, over the course of another week, I installed the same supports in a row along the side walls. The mount turned out great!

I installed shelves in the cellar; I used support posts for this, driving nails into them instead of hooks. I hung all the things I could fit there. He began to put his household in proper order.

He moved all the kitchen utensils into the pantry and put them in their places. I installed several shelves there too; I put together a small table to cook food on. There were very few boards left, so instead of a second chair I made a bench.

I didn’t leave the tent because it was pouring rain all day long. I'm gnawing on the remains of sea biscuits.

Still the same disgusting weather.

Finally the rain stopped. Everything around came to life, the greenery became fresher, the air was cooler, the sky cleared.

In the morning I shot two kids, one outright, the other only wounded in the leg. Having caught the wounded animal, he brought it home and examined it. The wound turned out to be trivial, I bandaged it and the kid came out. Over time, he became completely tame, nibbling the grass on my property, and for the first time I thought about having livestock. Moreover, I will soon run out of gunpowder.

Complete calm, sweltering heat. He only went out to hunt in the evening. There is little game. The rest of the time I did housework and read.

The heat does not subside, but I went hunting twice, in the morning and in the evening. I rested during the day. When he was returning home from hunting at dusk, he noticed a herd of goats in the valley. They are so shy that you cannot approach them to shoot. I thought, shouldn’t I set my dog ​​on them?

I took my dog ​​hunting. However, my experiment was unsuccessful - as soon as I set the dog on the goats, the herd moved towards him, threateningly sticking out its horns. My dog, barking furiously, began to back away until he completely chickened out and rushed away.

He began to strengthen the outer side of the palisade with an earthen rampart. Although my island seems deserted, the possibility of an attack on my home still exists, because I still have not fully explored it. Work with the stockade lasted about four months, because it was interrupted by bad weather and other urgent matters. Now I have a safe haven...

Every day, if it wasn’t raining, I went out hunting, moving further and further from home and exploring the world around me. I came across tall impenetrable thickets of bamboo and walked around them for a long time, saw coconut palms, a melon tree - papaya, wild tobacco, and tasted avocados. I saw many birds and animals for the first time in my life; There were especially many nimble animals with golden-red fur, similar to hares. Variegated parrots scurried about in the vines, which rose with their strong stems towards the light from the twilight of the broad-leaved forest, ferns rustled, orchids fragrant, prickly cacti were found in open places - I was amazed, admiring the diversity and beauty of tropical nature.

One day I came across wild pigeons. They made nests not in trees, but in rock crevices, so I could easily reach them. Taking several chicks, I tried to tame them and make them domestic. I fussed with the pigeons for a long time, but as soon as the chicks got stronger, they immediately flew away. This was repeated several times; Perhaps the pigeons left my house because I did not have suitable food for them. After that I caught wild pigeons only for my own food.

I continued to be a successful carpenter, but I still couldn’t make something. I did not have enough barrels, especially for drinking water - the only suitable barrel of the three that I had was too small in volume, and I had to fill it often when going down to the spring. But I couldn’t make a solid barrel.

I also needed candles. The day here faded instantly - darkness came around seven o'clock in the evening. There was not enough light from the fireplace. I remembered how I made candles during my misadventures in Africa: I took a wick, dipped it in fat or vegetable oil, lit it and hung it. Then he poured melted wax over it many times in a row and cooled until a thick candle came out. However, I didn't have wax and had to use goat fat. I made a bowl out of clay, dried it thoroughly in the sun, and used hemp from an old rope for the wick. This is how I got the lamp. It burned weakly and unevenly, much worse than a candle, but now, having built several such lamps, I could pick up a book in the evenings, at least for a while.

Even before the rains began, while sorting out my things, I came across a bag containing the remains of food for the ship's birds. I needed the bag for gunpowder, and, going outside the tent, I thoroughly shook its contents onto the ground, getting rid of the grain chewed by rats. Imagine my surprise when a month later I saw green sprouts unknown to me in the clearing. By this time I had completely forgotten about the bag and did not remember where I shook it out. Now I began to look closely at the stems. And not in vain - they grew quickly and soon began to spike. It was barley! Moreover, among the ears of barley I noticed a dozen stalks of wheat. A miracle happened before my eyes - after all, in the bag, in my opinion, there was only dust left in which the ship’s rats were in charge. It was also a miracle that if I walked two steps further and shook the bag in another, drier and sunnier place, the wheat and barley might not sprout. I decided to look around - maybe cereals grow somewhere else on the island - I searched all the clearings in the vicinity, but found nothing.

End of introductory fragment.

And yet the next day, July 1, I felt bad again: I was shivering again, although this time less than before. Since July 3, my fever has not recurred. But I finally recovered only after two or three weeks... So I lived for ten months on this sad island. It was clear to me that I had no way to escape. I was firmly convinced that no human had ever set foot here before. Now that my home was surrounded by a strong fence, I decided to carefully explore the island to find out if there were any new animals and plants on it that might be useful. On July 15, I began the examination. First of all, I headed to the small bay where I moored with my rafts. A stream flowed into the bay. Having walked about two miles upstream, I became convinced that the tide did not reach there, since from this place and higher the water in the stream turned out to be fresh, transparent and clean. In some places the stream has dried up, as there is a rainless period at this time of year. The banks of the stream were low: the stream flowed through beautiful meadows. Thick, tall grasses were green all around, and further on, on the hillside, tobacco grew in abundance. The flood did not reach this high place, and therefore tobacco grew here with lush shoots. There were other plants there that I had never seen before; it is possible that if I knew their properties, I could derive considerable benefit from them. I was looking for cassava, from the root of which Indians living in hot climates make bread, but I couldn’t find it. But I saw magnificent specimens of aloe and sugar cane. But I didn’t know whether it was possible to prepare any food from aloe, and sugar cane was not suitable for making sugar, since it grew wild. The next day, the 16th, I again visited those places and walked a little further - to where the meadows ended. There I found many different fruits. Most of all there were melons. And grapevines curled along the tree trunks, and luxurious ripe grapes hung overhead. This discovery both surprised and delighted me. The grapes turned out to be very sweet. I decided to prepare it for future use - dry it in the sun and, when it turns into raisins, store it in my pantry: raisins taste so good and are good for health! To do this, I collected as many bunches of grapes as possible and hung them on the trees. That day I did not return home to spend the night - I wanted to stay in the forest. Fearing that some predator would attack me at night, I, as on the first day of my stay on the island, climbed a tree and spent the whole night there. I slept well, and the next morning I set off on my further journey. I walked another four miles in the same direction, north. At the end of the road I discovered a new beautiful valley. At the top of one of the hills a cold and fast stream began. He made his way to the east. I walked along the valley. Hills rose to the right and left. Everything around was green, blooming, and fragrant. It seemed to me that I was in a garden cultivated by human hands. Every bush, every tree, every flower was dressed in a magnificent outfit. Coconut palms, orange and lemon trees grew here in abundance, but they were wild, and only a few bore fruit. I picked green lemons and then drank water with lemon juice. This drink was very refreshing and good for my health. Only three days later I reached home (that’s what I will now call my tent and cave) and recalled with admiration the wonderful valley I had discovered, imagined its picturesque location, its groves rich in fruit trees, thought about how well it was protected from the winds, how much fertile spring water there is, and came to the conclusion that the place where I built my house was poorly chosen: it is one of the worst places on the entire island. And having come to this conclusion, I naturally began to dream of how I could move there, to a blooming green valley, where there is such an abundance of fruits. It was necessary to find a suitable place in this valley and protect it from attacks by predators. This thought worried me for a long time: the fresh greenery of the beautiful valley beckoned me. Dreams of relocation brought me great joy. But, when I carefully discussed this plan, when I took into account that now from my tent I always see the sea and, therefore, have at least the slightest hope for a favorable change in my fate, I told myself that I would under no circumstances You should not move to a valley closed on all sides by hills. After all, it may happen that the waves will bring to this island another unfortunate person who has been shipwrecked at sea, and whoever this unfortunate person is, I will be glad to have him as my best friend. Of course, there was little hope for such an accident, but to take refuge among the mountains and forests, in the depths of the island, far from the sea, meant forever imprisoning oneself in this prison and forgetting all dreams of freedom until death. And yet I loved my valley so much that I spent the entire end of July there almost hopelessly and arranged for myself another home there. I erected a hut in the valley, fenced it tightly with a strong double palisade taller than a man’s height, and filled the gaps between the stakes with brushwood; I entered the courtyard and left the courtyard using a ladder, just like in my old home. Thus, even here I could not be afraid of attacks from predatory animals. I liked these new places so much that I sometimes spent several days there; For two or three nights in a row I slept in a hut, and I could breathe much more freely. “Now I have a house on the seashore and a dacha in the forest,” I said to myself. Work on the construction of this “dacha” took me all the time until the beginning of August. On August 3, I saw that the bunches of grapes I had hung were completely dry and turned into excellent raisins. I immediately began to take them off. I had to hurry, otherwise they would have been spoiled by the rain and I would have lost almost all my winter supplies, and I had rich supplies: no less than two hundred very large brushes. As soon as I took the last brush from the tree and carried it into the cave, black clouds approached and heavy rain poured down. It went non-stop for two months: from August 14 to half of October. Sometimes it was a real flood, and then I could not leave the cave for several days. During this time, to my great pleasure, my family grew. One of my cats left home a long time ago and was missing somewhere; I thought she had died, and I felt sorry for her, when suddenly at the end of August she returned home and brought three kittens. From August 14 to August 26, the rains did not stop, and I almost did not leave the house, since since my illness I had been careful not to get caught in the rain, fearing a cold. But while I was sitting in the cave, waiting for good weather, my provisions began to run out, so twice I even risked going out hunting. The first time I shot a goat, and the second time, on the 26th, I caught a huge turtle, from which I made a whole dinner for myself. In general, at that time my food was distributed as follows: for breakfast a branch of raisins, for lunch a piece of goat or turtle meat (baked on coals, since, unfortunately, I had nothing to fry and cook in), for dinner two or three turtles eggs. All these twelve days, while I was hiding in a cave from the rain, I spent two or three hours every day doing excavation work, since I had long ago decided to enlarge my cellar. I dug and dug in one direction and finally took the passage outside, beyond the fence. Now I had a through passage; I installed a secret door here through which I could freely go in and out without resorting to a ladder. It was, of course, convenient, but not as calm as before: before, my home was fenced off on all sides, and I could sleep without fear of enemies; Now it was easy to get into the cave: access to me was open! I don’t understand, however, how I didn’t realize then that I had no one to fear, because in all that time I didn’t meet a single animal larger than a goat on the island. September 30th. Today is the sad anniversary of my arrival on the island. I counted the notches on the post, and it turned out that I had been living here for exactly three hundred and sixty-five days! Will I ever be lucky enough to escape from this prison to freedom? I recently discovered that I have very little ink left. I will have to spend them more economically: until now I kept my notes daily and entered all sorts of little things there, but now I will write down only the outstanding events of my life. By this time, I had managed to notice that periods of rain here alternate quite regularly with periods of no rain, and, thus, I could prepare in advance for both rain and drought. But I acquired my experience at a high price. This is evidenced by at least one event that happened to me at that time. Immediately after the rains, when the sun moved into the Southern Hemisphere, I decided that the time had come to sow those meager supplies of rice and barley, which were mentioned above. I sowed them and eagerly awaited the harvest. But the dry months came, not a drop of moisture remained in the ground, and not a single grain sprouted. It’s good that I put aside a handful of rice and barley in reserve. I said to myself: “It’s better not to sow all the seeds; after all, the local climate has not yet been studied by me, and I don’t know for sure when to sow and when to harvest.” I praised myself very much for this precaution, since I was sure that all my crops had perished from the drought. But great was my surprise when, a few months later, as soon as the rains began, almost all my grains sprouted, as if I had just sowed them! While my bread was growing and ripening, I made one discovery, which subsequently brought me considerable benefit. As soon as the rains stopped and the weather settled down, that is, around November, I went to my forest dacha. I had not been there for several months and was glad to see that everything remained as before, in the same form as it was with me. Only the fence surrounding my hut has changed. It consisted, as is known, of a double palisade. The fence was intact, but its stakes, for which I took young trees of a species unknown to me that were growing nearby, sent out long shoots, just like a willow shoots when its top is cut off. I was very surprised to see these fresh branches, and I was extremely pleased that my fence was all green. I trimmed each tree so as to give them all the same appearance, and they grew marvelously. Although the circular area of ​​my dacha was up to twenty-five yards in diameter, the trees (as I could now call my stakes) soon covered it with their branches and provided such dense shade that it was possible to hide from the sun in it at any time of the day. . Therefore, I decided to cut several dozen more of the same stakes and drive them in a semicircle along the entire fence of my old house. So I did. I drove them into the ground in two rows, stepping back from the wall about eight yards. They set to work, and soon I had a hedge, which at first protected me from the heat, and later served me another, more important service. By this time I was finally convinced that on my island the seasons should be divided not into summer and winter, but into dry and rainy, and these periods are distributed approximately like this: Half of February. March. Rains. The sun is in the ze- Half of April. thread. Half of April. May. Dry. The sun moves June. to the north. July. Half of August. Half of August. Rains. The sun is back in September. thread. Half of October. Half of October November. Dry. The sun moves December. to the south. January. Half of February. The rainy periods can be longer or shorter - it depends on the wind - but in general I have planned them correctly. Little by little I became convinced from experience that during the rainy season it is very dangerous for me to be in the open air: it is harmful to my health. Therefore, before the rains began, I always stocked up on provisions so that I could leave the threshold as little as possible and tried to stay at home during all the rainy months. CHAPTER ELEVEN Robinson continues to explore the island I tried many times to weave myself a basket, but the rods that I managed to get turned out to be so brittle that nothing came of it. As a child, I really loved going to a basket maker who lived in our city and watching how he worked. And now it's useful to me. All children are observant and love to help adults. Taking a closer look at the basket maker’s work, I soon noticed how the baskets were woven, and as best I could, I helped my friend work. Little by little I learned to weave baskets as well as he did. So now all I was missing was material. Finally it occurred to me: wouldn’t the branches of the trees from which I made the palisade be suitable for this task? After all, they should have elastic, flexible branches, like our willow or willow. And I decided to try. The next day I went to the dacha, cut off several branches, choosing the thinnest ones, and became convinced that they were perfectly suitable for weaving baskets. The next time I came with an ax to immediately chop more branches. I didn’t have to look for them for long, since trees of this species grew here in large numbers. I dragged the chopped rods over the fence of my hut and hid them. As soon as the rainy season began, I sat down to work and weaved a lot of baskets. They served me for various needs: I carried soil in them, stored all sorts of things, etc. True, my baskets were a little rough, I couldn’t give them grace, but, in any case, they served their purpose well, and that’s all I needed. Since then, I often had to weave baskets: the old ones broke or wore out and new ones were needed. I made all sorts of baskets - both large and small, but mainly I stocked up on deep and strong baskets for storing grain: I wanted them to serve me instead of bags. True, now I had little grain, but I intended to save it for several years. ...I have already said that I really wanted to go around the entire island and that several times I reached the stream and even higher - to the place where I built a hut. From there it was possible to freely walk to the opposite shore, which I had never seen before. I took a gun, a hatchet, a large supply of gunpowder, shot and bullets, grabbed two crackers and a large branch of raisins just in case and hit the road. The dog ran after me, as always. When I reached my hut, without stopping, I moved further to the west. And suddenly, after walking for half an hour, I saw the sea in front of me, and in the sea, to my surprise, a strip of land. It was a bright, sunny day, I could clearly see the land, but I could not determine whether it was a mainland or an island. The high plateau stretched from west to south and was very far from my island - according to my calculation, forty miles, if not more. I had no idea what kind of land this was. One thing I knew for sure: this was undoubtedly a part of South America, lying, in all likelihood, not far from Spanish possessions. It is quite possible that savage cannibals live there and that if I got there, my situation would be even worse than it is now. This thought brought me the greatest joy. So, in vain I cursed my bitter fate. My life could have been much sadder. This means that I completely in vain tormented myself with fruitless regrets about why the storm threw me here and not to some other place. So, I should be glad that I live here on my desert island. Thinking in this way, I slowly moved forward, and I had to convince myself at every step that this part of the island where I was now was much more attractive than the one where I had made my first home. Everywhere here there are green meadows, decorated with marvelous flowers, lovely groves, and loudly singing birds. I noticed that there were a lot of parrots here, and I wanted to catch one: I hoped to tame it and teach it to speak. After several unsuccessful attempts, I managed to catch a young parrot: I knocked out its wing with a stick. Stunned by my blow, he fell to the ground. I picked it up and brought it home. Subsequently, I managed to get him to call me by name. Having reached the seashore, I was once again convinced that fate had thrown me into the worst part of the island. Here the entire coast was dotted with turtles, and where I lived, I found only three in a year and a half. There were countless birds of all kinds. There were also some that I had never seen. The meat of some turned out to be very tasty, although I didn’t even know what they were called. Among the birds I knew, penguins were the best. So, I repeat once again: this coast was in every way more attractive than mine. And yet I did not have the slightest desire to move here. Having lived in my tent for about two years, I managed to get used to those places, but here I felt like a traveler, a guest, I felt somehow uneasy and longed to go home. Coming ashore, I turned east and walked along the coast for about twelve miles. Then I stuck a high pole into the ground to mark the place, since I decided that next time I would come here from the other side, and headed back. I wanted to return by a different route. “The island is so small,” I thought, “that it’s impossible to get lost on it. At the very least, I’ll climb the hill, look around and see where my old home is.” However, I made a big mistake. Having gone no more than two or three miles from the shore, I unnoticed descended into a wide valley, which was so closely surrounded by hills covered with dense forests that there was no way to decide where I was. I could follow the path of the sun, but to do this I had to know exactly where the sun was at these hours. The worst thing was that for three or four days while I was wandering in the valley, the weather was cloudy and the sun did not appear at all. In the end I had to go out to the seashore again, to the very place where my pole stood. From there I returned home the same way. I walked slowly and often sat down to rest, since the weather was very hot, and I had to carry a lot of heavy things - a gun, charges, an ax. CHAPTER TWELVE Robinson returns to the cave. - His field work During this trip, my dog ​​scared the kid and grabbed it, but did not have time to gnaw it: I ran up and took it away. I really wanted to take him with me: I passionately dreamed of getting a couple of kids somewhere in order to breed a herd and provide myself with meat food by the time I ran out of all the gunpowder. I made a collar for the kid and led him on a rope; I made the rope long ago from hemp from old ropes and always carried it in my pocket. The kid resisted, but still walked. Having reached my dacha, I left him in the fence, but I went further: I wanted to find myself at home as soon as possible, since I had been traveling for more than a month. I cannot express with what pleasure I returned under the roof of my old house and again lay down in the hammock. These wanderings around the island, when I had nowhere to lay my head, tired me so much that my own home (as I now called my home) seemed unusually cozy to me. I relaxed for a week and enjoyed home-cooked food. Most of this time I was busy with the most important thing: making a cage for Popka, who immediately became a pet bird and became very attached to me. Then I remembered the poor kid sitting captive in the country. “Probably,” I thought, “he has already eaten all the grass and drunk all the water that I left for him, and now he is starving.” I had to go get him. Arriving at the dacha, I found him where I left him. However, he could not leave. He was dying of hunger. I cut branches from nearby trees and threw them over the fence to him. When the kid ate, I tied a rope to his collar and wanted to lead him as before, but from hunger he became so tame that the rope was no longer needed: he ran after me on his own, like a little dog. On the way, I often fed him, and thanks to this he became as obedient and meek as the other residents of my house, and became so attached to me that he did not leave me a single step. December arrived, when barley and rice were supposed to sprout. The plot I cultivated was small, because, as I have already said, drought destroyed almost all the crops of the first year, and I had no more than an eighth-bushel of each type of grain left. This time one could expect an excellent harvest, but suddenly it turned out that I again risked losing all the crops, since my field was being devastated by whole hordes of various enemies, from which it was hardly possible to protect myself. These enemies were, firstly, goats, and secondly, those wild animals that I called hares. They liked the sweet stalks of rice and barley: they spent days and nights in the field and ate the young shoots before they had time to spike. There was only one remedy against the invasion of these enemies: to fence the entire field with a fence. That's exactly what I did. But this work was very difficult, mainly because it was necessary to hurry, since the enemies were mercilessly destroying the ears of corn. However, the field was so small that after three weeks the fence was ready. The fence turned out to be quite good. Until it was finished, I scared off the enemies with shots, and at night I tied a dog to the fence, which barked until the morning. Thanks to all these precautions, the enemies left me alone, and my ears began to fill with grain. But as soon as the grain began to spike, new enemies appeared: flocks of voracious birds flew in and began to circle over the field, waiting for me to leave so they could pounce on the bread. I immediately fired a charge of shot at them (since I never went out without a gun), and before I had time to shoot, another flock rose from the field, which I did not notice at first. I was seriously alarmed. “A few more days of such robbery - and goodbye to all my hopes,” I told myself, “I have no more seeds, and I will be left without bread.” What was to be done? How to get rid of this new scourge? I couldn’t think of anything, but I firmly decided to defend my bread at all costs, even if I had to guard it around the clock. First of all, I walked around the entire field to determine how much harm the birds had caused me. It turned out that the bread was quite spoiled. But this loss could still be reconciled if the rest could be saved. The birds were hiding in the nearby trees: they were waiting for me to leave. I loaded the gun and pretended to leave. The thieves rejoiced and began to descend one after another onto the arable land. This made me terribly angry. At first I wanted to wait for the whole flock to descend, but I didn’t have the patience. “After all, for every grain that they eat now, I may lose a whole loaf of bread in the future,” I said to myself. I ran to the fence and started shooting; three birds remained in place. I picked them up and hung them on a high pole to intimidate the others. It is difficult to imagine what an amazing effect this measure had: not a single bird landed on the arable land anymore. Everyone flew away from this part of the island; at least I didn’t see one during the entire time my scarecrows were hanging on the pole. You can be sure that this victory over the birds gave me great pleasure. By the end of December the bread was ripe, and I harvested, my second this year. Unfortunately, I had neither a scythe nor a sickle, and after much deliberation I decided to use for field work a wide saber, which I had taken from the ship along with other weapons. However, I had so little bread that it was not difficult to remove it. And I harvested it in my own way: I cut off only the ears of corn and carried it away from the field in a large basket. When everything was collected, I rubbed the ears with my hands to separate the husks from the grain, and the result was that from one eighth bushel of seed of each variety I got about two bushels of rice and two and a half bushels of barley (of course, by rough calculation, since I had no measurements). The harvest was very good, and such luck inspired me. Now I could hope that in a few years I would have a constant supply of bread. But at the same time, new difficulties arose for me. How can you turn grain into flour without a mill, without millstones? How to sift flour? How to knead dough from flour? How to finally bake bread? I couldn't do any of this. Therefore, I decided not to touch the harvest and leave all the grain for seeds, and in the meantime, until the next sowing, make every effort to solve the main problem, that is, to find a way to turn grain into baked bread. CHAPTER THIRTEEN Robinson makes dishes When it was raining and it was impossible to leave the house, I casually taught my parrot to talk. This amused me greatly. After several lessons, he already knew his name, and then, although not soon, he learned to pronounce it quite loudly and clearly. “Ass” was the first word I heard on the island from someone else’s lips. But conversations with Popka were not work for me, but help in my work. At that time I had a very important matter. For a long time I had been racking my brains over how to make pottery, which I desperately needed, but I couldn’t come up with anything: there was no suitable clay. “If only I could find clay,” I thought, “it would be very easy for me to sculpt something like a pot or bowl. True, both the pot and the bowl would need to be fired, but I live in a hot climate, where the sun is hotter than any oven.” ". In any case, my dishes, after drying in the sun, will become strong enough. It will be possible to take it in your hands, it will be possible to hold grain, flour and, in general, all dry supplies in it to protect them from dampness. And I decided that, As soon as I find suitable clay, I will sculpt several large jugs for grain. I have not yet thought about such clay vessels in which I could cook. The reader, undoubtedly, would feel sorry for me, and maybe even laugh at me , if I told him how ineptly I started this work, what ridiculous, clumsy, ugly things came out of me at first, how many of my products fell apart because the clay was not mixed well enough and could not withstand its own weight Some of my pots were cracked because I was in a hurry to expose them to the sun when it was too hot; others crumbled into small pieces even before drying, at the first touch. For two months I worked without straightening my back. It took me a lot of work to find good pottery clay, dig it up, bring it home, process it, and yet after much trouble I only got two ugly clay vessels, because it was impossible to call them jugs. But still these were very useful things. I wove two large baskets from the twigs and, when my pots were well dried and hardened in the sun, I carefully lifted them one by one and placed each one in the basket. For greater safety, I filled all the empty space between the vessel and the basket with rice and barley straw. These first pots were intended for the time being for storing dry grain. I was afraid that they would get damp if I kept wet food in them. Subsequently I intended to store flour in them when I found a way to grind my grain. Large clay products turned out unsuccessful for me. I was much better at making small dishes: small round pots, plates, jugs, mugs, cups and the like. Small things are easier to sculpt; in addition, they burned more evenly in the sun and were therefore more durable. But still my main task remained unfulfilled. I needed a vessel in which I could cook: it had to withstand fire and not let water through, and the pots I made were not suitable for this. But somehow I lit a big fire to bake meat on the coals. When it was baked, I wanted to put out the coals and found between them a shard from a broken clay jug that had accidentally fallen into the fire. The shard became red-hot, became red like a tile, and hardened like stone. I was pleasantly surprised by this discovery. “If a clay shard is so hardened by fire, then it means we can just as easily burn pottery on fire,” I decided. I think not a single person in the world experienced such joy over such an insignificant occasion as I experienced when I was convinced that I had managed to make pots that were not afraid of either water or fire. I could hardly wait for my pots to cool down so that I could pour water into one of them, put it back on the fire and cook the meat in it. The pot turned out to be excellent. I made myself a very good broth from goat meat, although, of course, if I had put cabbage and onions in it and seasoned it with oatmeal, it would have turned out even better. Now I began to think about how to make a stone mortar to grind, or rather pound, grain in it; after all, such a wonderful work of art as a mill was out of the question: one pair of human hands was not capable of performing such work. But making a mortar was also not so easy: I was as completely ignorant in the craft of a stonemason as in everyone else, and, besides, I had no tools. I spent more than one day searching for a suitable stone, but found nothing. Here we needed a very hard stone and, moreover, large enough so that a recess could be hollowed out in it. There were cliffs on my island, but with all my efforts I could not break off a piece of suitable size from any of them. Moreover, this fragile, porous stone made of sandstone was not suitable for a mortar anyway: under a heavy pestle it would certainly crumble, and sand would get into the flour. Thus, having lost a lot of time on fruitless searches, I abandoned the idea of ​​a stone mortar and decided to make a wooden one, for which it was much easier to find material. Indeed, I soon spotted a very hard block in the forest, so large that I could hardly move it from its place. I hewed it with an ax to give it the desired shape as possible, and then struck a fire and began to burn a hole in it. This is what the Brazilian Redskins do when they make boats. Needless to say, this work cost me a lot of work. Having finished with the mortar, I hewed out a heavy, large pestle from the so-called ironwood. I hid both the mortar and pestle until the next harvest. Then, according to my calculations, I will get a sufficient amount of grain and it will be possible to separate some of it into flour. Now I had to think about how I would knead my breads once I prepared the flour. First of all, I didn't have any starter; however, there was nothing to help this grief anyway, and therefore I did not care about the leaven. But how can you do without a stove? This was truly a puzzling question. Nevertheless, I still came up with something to replace it with. I fashioned several vessels from clay, like dishes, very wide, but small, and fired them thoroughly in the fire. I prepared them long before the harvest and stored them in the pantry. Even earlier, I had a fireplace built on the ground - a flat area made of square (that is, strictly speaking, far from square) bricks, also of my own making and also well fired. When it was time to bake bread, I lit a big fire on this hearth. As soon as the wood burned through, I raked the coals all over the fireplace and let them sit for half an hour until the fireplace became red-hot. Then I shoveled all the heat to the side and piled my bread on the hearth. Then I covered them with one of the clay dishes I had prepared, turning it upside down, and filled the dish with hot coals. And what? My bread was baked like in the best oven. I was pleased to taste freshly baked bread! It seemed to me that I had never eaten such a wonderful delicacy in my life. In general, in a short time I became a very good baker; Apart from simple bread, I learned to bake puddings and rice cakes. Only I didn’t make pies, and even then only because, apart from goat meat and poultry meat, I didn’t have any other filling. These chores took the entire third year of my stay on the island. CHAPTER FOURTEEN Robinson builds a boat and sews new clothes for himself You can be sure that all this time thoughts of the land that was visible from the other shore did not leave me. In the depths of my soul I never ceased to regret that I had settled on the wrong bank: it seemed to me that if I had seen that land in front of me, I would somehow have found a way to get to it. And if I had gotten to her, I might have been able to get out of these places to freedom. That’s when I more than once remembered my little friend Xuri and my long boat with a side sail, on which I sailed along the African coast for more than a thousand miles. But what's the point of remembering! I decided to look at our ship’s boat, which, back in the storm when we were wrecked, washed up on an island a few miles from my home. This boat lay not far from the place where it was thrown out. The surf overturned her upside down and carried her a little higher, onto a sandbank; she was lying in a dry place, and there was no water around her. If I could repair and launch this boat, I could get to Brazil without much difficulty. But for such work one pair of hands was not enough. I could easily understand that it was just as impossible for me to move this boat as it was for me to move my island. And yet I decided to try. I went into the forest, chopped thick poles that were supposed to serve as levers for me, hewed two rollers out of logs and dragged it all to the boat. “If only I could turn her over to the bottom,” I said to myself, “but repairing her is not a difficult task. It will turn out to be such an excellent boat that you can safely go to sea in it.” And I spared no effort in this useless work. I spent three or four weeks on it. Moreover, when I finally realized that it was not with my weak strength to move such a heavy ship, I came up with a new plan. I began to throw sand away from one side of the boat, hoping that, having lost its support point, it would turn over on its own and sink to the bottom; At the same time, I placed pieces of wood under it so that it would turn over and stand exactly where I wanted it. The boat really sank to the bottom, but this did not move me at all towards my goal: I still could not launch it into the water. I couldn’t even get the levers under it and was finally forced to give up my idea. But this failure did not discourage me from further attempts to reach the mainland. On the contrary, when I saw that there was no way for me to sail away from the hateful shore, my desire to go into the ocean not only did not weaken, but increased even more. Finally it occurred to me: shouldn’t I try to make a boat myself, or, better yet, a pirogue, like the ones the natives make in these latitudes? “To make a pirogue,” I reasoned, “you don’t need almost any tools, since it is hollowed out from a solid tree trunk; one person can handle such work.” In a word, making a pirogue seemed to me not only possible, but the easiest thing, and the thought of this work was very pleasant for me. With great pleasure I thought that it would be even easier for me to complete this task than for the savages. I did not ask myself how I would launch my pirogue when it was ready, and yet this obstacle was much more serious than the lack of tools. I indulged in dreams of my future journey with such passion that I did not dwell on this question for a second, although it was quite obvious that it was incomparably easier to navigate a boat forty-five miles across the sea than to drag it along the land forty-five yards that separated it. from water. In a word, in the story of the pie I acted as foolish as a man in his right mind could play. I amused myself with my idea, not giving myself the trouble to calculate whether I had enough strength to cope with it. And it’s not that the thought of launching it on the water didn’t come into my head at all - no, it did, but I didn’t give it a go, suppressing it every time with the stupidest argument: “First we’ll make a boat, and then we’ll think about how to launch it.” - tit. It’s impossible that I didn’t come up with something!” Of course it was all crazy! But my heated dream turned out to be stronger than any reasoning, and without thinking twice I took up the ax. I cut down a magnificent cedar, which was five feet ten inches in diameter at the bottom, at the beginning of the trunk, and at the top, at a height of twenty-two feet, four feet eleven inches; then the trunk gradually became thinner and finally branched. You can imagine how much work it took me to fell this huge tree! It took me twenty days to cut down the trunk itself, going first from one side or the other, and it took me another fourteen days to cut off the side branches and separate the huge, spreading top. For a whole month I worked on the outside of my deck, trying to carve out at least some semblance of a keel, because without the keel the pie would not have been able to stay upright on the water. And it took another three months to hollow it out inside. This time I did it without fire: I did all this huge work with a hammer and chisel. Finally, I came up with an excellent pirogue, so big that it could easily lift twenty-five people, and therefore me with all my cargo. I was delighted with my work: never in my life have I seen such a large boat made of solid wood. But it also cost me dearly. How many times did I have to, exhausted from fatigue, hit this tree with an axe! Be that as it may, half the work was done. All that remained was to launch the boat, and I have no doubt that if I had succeeded, I would have undertaken the wildest and most desperate of all sea voyages ever undertaken on the globe. But all my efforts to launch it into the water did not lead to anything: my pirogue remained where it was! There was no more than a hundred yards from the forest where I built it to the water, but the forest was in a hollow, and the bank was high and steep. This was the first obstacle. However, I bravely decided to eliminate it: it was necessary to remove all the excess earth in such a way that a gentle slope would form from the forest to the shore. It’s scary to remember how much work I spent on this work, but who wouldn’t give his last strength when it comes to achieving freedom! So, the first obstacle has been removed: the road for the boat is ready. But this led to nothing: no matter how much I struggled, I could not move my pirogue, just as I could not move the ship’s boat before. Then I measured the distance separating the pirogue from the sea and decided to dig a channel for it: if it was impossible to lead the boat to the water, all that remained was to lead the water to the boat. And I had already begun to dig, but when I figured out in my mind the required depth and width of the future canal, when I calculated how long it would take one person to do such work, it turned out that I would need at least ten to twelve years to complete the work. it to the end... There was nothing to do, I had to reluctantly give up this idea too. I was upset to the depths of my soul and only then realized how stupid it was to start work without first calculating how much time and labor it would require and whether I would have enough strength to complete it. The fourth anniversary of my stay on the island found me doing this stupid work. By this time, many of the things I took from the ship were either completely worn out or at the end of their life, and the ship’s provisions were already running out. Following the ink, my entire supply of bread came out, that is, not bread, but ship's biscuits. I saved them as much as I could. Over the past year and a half, I have allowed myself to eat no more than one cracker a day. And yet, before I collected such an amount of grain from my field that I could start eating it, I spent almost a year without a crumb of bread. By this time my clothes began to become completely unusable. I only had checkered shirts (about three dozen), which I found in the sailors' chests. I treated them with special thrift; on my island it was often so hot that I had to walk around in just a shirt, and I don’t know what I would have done without this supply of shirts. Of course I could walk around naked in this climate. But I could bear the heat of the sun more easily if I had clothes on. The scorching rays of the tropical sun burned my skin until it blistered, but my shirt protected it from the sun, and, in addition, I was cooled by the movement of air between the shirt and my body. I also could not get used to walking in the sun with my head uncovered; Every time I went out without a hat, my head started to hurt. I should have made better use of the clothes I still had left. First of all, I needed a jacket: I wore out all the ones I had. Therefore, I decided to try to convert sailor pea coats into jackets, which I still had lying around unused. In such pea coats, sailors stand watch on winter nights. And so I began to tailor! To be honest, I was a rather pitiful tailor, but, be that as it may, I managed to make two or three jackets, which, according to my calculations, should have lasted me for a long time. It would be better not to talk about my first attempt to sew pants, since it ended in a shameful failure. But soon after that I invented a new way of dressing, and from then on I had no shortage of clothes. The fact is that I kept the skins of all the animals I killed. I dried each skin in the sun, stretching it on poles. Only at first, out of inexperience, I kept them in the sun for too long, so the first skins were so tough that they could hardly be useful for anything. But the rest were very good. It was from these that I first sewed a large hat with the fur outside so that it would not be afraid of the rain. The fur hat worked out so well for me that I decided to build myself a full suit, that is, a jacket and pants, from the same material. I made the pants short, to the knees, and very spacious; I also made the jacket wider, because I needed both not so much for warmth, but for protection from the sun. The cut and work, I must admit, were no good. I was an unimportant carpenter, and a tailor even worse. Be that as it may, the clothes I sewed served me well, especially when I happened to leave the house during the rain: all the water flowed down the long fur, and I remained completely dry. After the jacket and pants, I decided to make myself an umbrella. I saw how umbrellas are made in Brazil. The heat there is so intense that it is difficult to do without an umbrella, but on my island it was no cooler, even, perhaps, hotter, since it is closer to the equator. I couldn’t hide from the heat; I spent most of my time in the open air. Need forced me to leave the house in all weathers, and sometimes to wander for a long time in both sun and rain. In a word, I absolutely needed an umbrella. I had a lot of fuss with this work and a lot of time passed before I managed to make something similar to an umbrella. Two or three times, when I thought that I had already achieved my goal, I came up with such bad things that I had to start all over again. But in the end I got my way and made a pretty tolerable umbrella. The point is that I wanted it to open and close - that was the main difficulty. Of course, it was very easy to make it motionless, but then you would have to carry it open, which was inconvenient. As already said, I overcame this difficulty, and my umbrella could open and close. I covered it with goat skins, with the fur facing outward: rainwater flowed down the fur like on a slanted roof, and the hottest rays of the sun could not penetrate through it. With this umbrella I was not afraid of any rain and did not suffer from the sun even in the hottest weather, and when I did not need it, I closed it and carried it under my arm. So I lived on my island, calm and content. CHAPTER FIFTEEN Robinson builds another smaller boat and tries to go around the island Another five years passed, and during that time, as far as I can remember, no extraordinary events occurred. My life proceeded as before - quietly and peacefully; I lived in the old place and still devoted all my time to work and hunting. Now I already had so much grain that my sowing was enough for me for a whole year; There were also plenty of grapes. But because of this, I had to work even more in the forest and in the field than before. However, my main job was building a new boat. This time I not only made the boat, but also launched it: I took it into the cove along a narrow channel that I had to dig for half a mile. As the reader already knows, I made my first boat of such enormous size that I was forced to leave it at the site of its construction as a monument to my stupidity. He constantly reminded me to be smarter from now on. Now I was much more experienced. True, this time I built the boat almost half a mile from the water, since I could not find a suitable tree closer, but I was confident that I would be able to launch it. I saw that the work I had started this time did not exceed my strength, and I firmly decided to complete it. For almost two years I fussed over the construction of the boat. I so passionately wanted to finally have the opportunity to sail the sea that I spared no effort. It should be noted, however, that I did not build this new pirogue in order to leave my island. I had to say goodbye to this dream a long time ago. The boat was so small that there was no point in even thinking about sailing on it those forty or more miles that separated my island from the mainland. Now I had a more modest goal: to go around the island - and that’s all. I had already visited the opposite shore once, and the discoveries that I made there interested me so much that even then I wanted to explore the entire coastline surrounding me. And now, when I had a boat, I decided to go around my island by sea at all costs. Before setting off, I carefully prepared for the upcoming voyage. I made a tiny mast for my boat and sewed the same tiny sail from pieces of canvas, which I had a fair supply of. When the boat was rigged, I tested its progress and was convinced that it sailed quite satisfactorily. Then I built small boxes on the stern and bow to protect provisions, charges and other necessary things that I would take with me on the journey from rain and waves. For the gun, I hollowed out a narrow groove in the bottom of the boat. Then I strengthened the open umbrella, giving it a position so that it was above my head and protected me from the sun, like a canopy. Until now I had taken short walks along the sea from time to time, but had never gone far from my bay. Now, when I intended to inspect the borders of my small state and equipped my ship for a long voyage, I carried there the wheat bread I had baked, a clay pot of fried rice and half a goat carcass. On November 6 I set off. I drove much longer than I expected. The fact is that although my island itself was small, when I turned to the eastern part of its coast, an unforeseen obstacle arose in front of me. At this point a narrow ridge of rocks separates from the shore; some of them stick out above the water, others are hidden in the water. The ridge extends for six miles into the open sea, and further, behind the rocks, a sandbank stretches for another mile and a half. Thus, in order to go around this spit, we had to drive quite far from the coast. It was very dangerous. I even wanted to turn back, because I could not determine with accuracy how far I would have to go in the open sea before I went around the ridge of underwater rocks, and I was afraid to take risks. And besides, I didn’t know if I would be able to turn back. Therefore, I dropped the anchor (before setting off, I made myself some kind of anchor from a piece of an iron hook that I found on the ship), took the gun and went ashore. Having spotted a fairly high hill nearby, I climbed up it, measured by eye the length of the rocky ridge, which was clearly visible from here, and decided to take a chance. But before I had time to reach this ridge, I found myself at a terrible depth and then fell into a powerful stream of the sea current. It spun me around as if in a mill sluice, picked me up and carried me away. There was no point in thinking about turning towards the shore or turning to the side. All I could do was stay close to the edge of the current and try not to get caught in the middle. Meanwhile, I was carried further and further. If there had been even a slight breeze, I could have raised the sail, but the sea was completely calm. I worked the oars with all my might, but I could not cope with the current and was already saying goodbye to life. I knew that in a few miles the current in which I found myself would merge with another current going around the island, and that if by then I did not manage to turn aside, I would be irretrievably lost. Meanwhile, I didn’t see any possibility of turning around. There was no salvation: certain death awaited me - and not in the waves of the sea, because the sea was calm, but from hunger. True, on the shore I found a turtle so large that I could barely lift it, and I took it with me into the boat. I also had a decent supply of fresh water - I took the largest of my clay jugs. But what did this mean for a pitiful creature, lost in a boundless ocean, where one could swim a thousand miles without seeing any sign of land! I now remembered my deserted, abandoned island as an earthly paradise, and my only desire was to return to this paradise. I passionately extended my arms to him. - O desert, which gave me happiness! - I exclaimed. - I will never see you again. Oh, what will happen to me? Where are the merciless waves taking me? How ungrateful I was when I grumbled about my loneliness and cursed this beautiful island! Yes, now my island was dear and sweet to me, and it was bitter for me to think that I had to say goodbye forever to the hope of seeing it again. I was carried and carried into the boundless watery distance. But, although I felt mortal fear and despair, I still did not give in to these feelings and continued to row without ceasing, trying to steer the boat north to cross the current and go around the reefs. Suddenly, around noon, a breeze picked up. This encouraged me. But imagine my joy when the breeze began to quickly freshen and after half an hour turned into a good wind! By this time I had been driven far from my island. If the fog had risen at that time, I would have died! I did not have a compass with me, and if I had lost sight of my island, I would not have known where to go. But, fortunately for me, it was a sunny day and there was no sign of fog. I set up the mast, raised the sail and began to steer north, trying to get out of the current. As soon as my boat turned into the wind and went against the current, I noticed a change in it: the water became much lighter. I realized that for some reason the current was beginning to weaken, since before, when it was faster, the water was cloudy all the time. And indeed, soon I saw cliffs to my right, in the east (they could be distinguished from afar by the white foam of the waves seething around each of them). It was these cliffs that slowed down the flow, blocking its path. I soon became convinced that they not only slowed down the current, but also split it into two streams, of which the main one deviated only slightly to the south, leaving the cliffs to the left, and the other turned sharply back and headed northwest. Only those who know from experience what it means to receive a pardon while standing on the scaffold, or to escape from robbers at that last minute when a knife is already pressed to the throat, will understand my delight at this discovery. With my heart beating with joy, I sent my boat into the opposite stream, set the sail to a fair wind, which became even more refreshing, and rushed back merrily. At about five o'clock in the evening I approached the shore and, having looked for a convenient place, moored. It is impossible to describe the joy that I experienced when I felt solid ground beneath me! How sweet every tree of my blessed island seemed to me! With hot tenderness I looked at these hills and valleys, which only yesterday caused melancholy in my heart. How glad I was that I would again see my fields, my groves, my cave, my faithful dog, my goats! How beautiful the road from the shore to my hut seemed to me! It was already evening when I reached my forest dacha. I climbed over the fence, lay down in the shade and, feeling terribly tired, soon fell asleep. But what was my surprise when someone’s voice woke me up. Yes, it was the voice of a man! Here on the island there was a man, and he shouted loudly in the middle of the night: “Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe!” Poor Robin Crusoe! Where have you gone, Robin Crusoe? Where did you end up? Where have you been? Exhausted by the long rowing, I slept so soundly that I could not immediately wake up, and for a long time it seemed to me that I heard this voice in my sleep. But the cry was insistently repeated: “Robin Crusoe, Robin Crusoe!” Finally I woke up and realized where I was. My first feeling was terrible fear. I jumped up, looking around wildly, and suddenly, raising my head, I saw my parrot on the fence. Of course, I immediately guessed that it was he who shouted these words: in exactly the same plaintive voice, I often spoke these very phrases in front of him, and he confirmed them perfectly. He would sit on my finger, bring his beak close to my face and wail sadly: “Poor Robin Crusoe! Where have you been and where have you ended up?” But even after being convinced that it was a parrot, and realizing that there was no one else to be here except the parrot, I could not calm down for a long time. I didn’t understand at all, firstly, how he got to my dacha, and secondly, why he flew here and not to another place. But since I didn’t have the slightest doubt that it was him, my faithful Popka, then, without racking my brains over questions, I called him by name and extended my hand to him. The sociable bird immediately sat on my finger and repeated again: “Poor Robin Crusoe!” Where did you end up? Popka was definitely happy to see me again. Leaving the hut, I put him on my shoulder and took him with me. The unpleasant adventures of my sea expedition for a long time discouraged me from sailing the sea, and for many days I reflected on the dangers to which I was exposed when I was carried into the ocean. Of course, it would be nice to have a boat on this side of the island, closer to my house, but how can I get it back from where I left it? To go around my island from the east - just the thought of it made my heart clench and my blood run cold. I had no idea what things were like on the other side of the island. What if the current on the other side is as fast as the current on this side? Couldn't it throw me onto the coastal rocks with the same force with which another current carried me into the open sea? In a word, although building this boat and launching it into the water cost me a lot of work, I decided that it was still better to be left without a boat than to risk my head for it. It must be said that now I have become much more skilled in all the manual works that the conditions of my life required. When I found myself on the island, I did not know how to use an ax at all, but now I could, given the opportunity, pass for a good carpenter, especially considering how few tools I had. I also (quite unexpectedly!) made a big step forward in pottery: I built a machine with a rotating wheel, which made my work faster and better; Now, instead of clumsy products that were disgusting to look at, I had very good dishes with a fairly regular shape. But never, it seems, have I been so happy and proud of my ingenuity as on the day when I managed to make a pipe. Of course, my pipe was of a primitive type - made of simple baked clay, like all my pottery, and it did not turn out very beautiful. But it was strong enough and passed smoke well, and most importantly, it was still the pipe that I had dreamed about so much, since I had been accustomed to smoking for a very long time. There were pipes on our ship, but when I transported things from there, I did not know that tobacco grew on the island, and I decided that it was not worth taking them. By this time I discovered that my supplies of gunpowder were beginning to noticeably decrease. This alarmed and upset me extremely, since there was nowhere to get new gunpowder. What will I do when all my gunpowder runs out? How will I hunt goats and birds then? Will I really be left without meat food for the rest of my days? CHAPTER SIXTEEN Robinson tames wild goats In the eleventh year of my stay on the island, when my gunpowder began to run low, I began to seriously think about how to find a way to catch wild goats alive. Most of all I wanted to catch the queen with her kids. At first I set snares, and the goats often got caught in them. But this was of little use to me: the goats ate the bait, and then broke the snare and calmly ran away into freedom. Unfortunately, I didn't have any wire, so I had to make a snare out of string. Then I decided to try wolf pits. Knowing the places where the goats grazed most often, I dug three deep holes there, covered them with wickerwork of my own making, and placed an armful of ears of rice and barley on each wicker. Soon I became convinced that goats were visiting my pits: the ears of corn were eaten and traces of goat hooves were visible all around. Then I set up real traps and the next day I found a large old goat in one hole, and three kids in another: one male and two females. I released the old goat because I didn’t know what to do with him. He was so wild and angry that it was impossible to take him alive (I was afraid to enter his pit), and there was no need to kill him. As soon as I lifted the braided wire, he jumped out of the hole and started running as fast as he could. Subsequently, I had to discover that hunger tames even lions. But I didn't know that then. If I made the goat fast for three or four days, and then brought him water and some ears of corn, he would become as docile as my kids. Goats are generally very smart and obedient. If you treat them well, they don't cost anything to tame. But, I repeat, at that time I did not know this. Having released the goat, I went to the hole where the kids were sitting, pulled out all three one by one, tied them together with a rope and with difficulty dragged them home. For quite a long time I could not get them to eat. Besides mother's milk, they did not yet know any other food. But when they got pretty hungry, I threw them a few juicy ears of corn, and little by little they began to eat. Soon they got used to me and became completely tame. Since then I started raising goats. I wanted to have a whole herd, since this was the only way to provide myself with meat by the time I ran out of gunpowder and shot. A year and a half later, I already had at least twelve goats, including kids, and two years later my herd had grown to forty-three heads. Over time I set up five fenced paddocks; they were all connected to each other by gates so that goats could be driven from one meadow to another. I now had an inexhaustible supply of goat meat and milk. Frankly, when I started raising goats, I didn’t even think about milk. Only later did I start milking them. I think that the most gloomy and gloomy person could not resist smiling if he saw me with my family at the dinner table. At the head of the table sat I, the king and ruler of the island, who had complete control over the lives of all my subjects: I could execute and pardon, give and take away freedom, and among my subjects there was not a single rebel. You should have seen with what royal pomp I dined alone, surrounded by my courtiers. Only Popka, as a favorite, was allowed to talk to me. The dog, which had long since become decrepit, always sat at the right hand of its master, and the cats sat on the left, waiting for handouts from my own hands. Such a handout was considered a sign of special royal favor. These were not the same cats that I brought from the ship. They died long ago, and I personally buried them near my home. One of them has already calved on the island; I left a couple of kittens with me, and they grew up tame, and the rest ran into the forest and became wild. In the end, so many cats bred on the island that there was no end to them: they climbed into my pantry, carried provisions and left me alone only when I shot two or three. I repeat, I lived like a real king, not needing anything; Next to me there was always a whole staff of courtiers devoted to me - there were only people. However, as the reader will see, the time soon came when too many people appeared in my domain. I was determined never to undertake dangerous sea voyages again, and yet I really wanted to have a boat at hand - if only to make a trip in it close to the shore! I often thought about how I could get her to the other side of the island where my cave was. But, realizing that it would be difficult to implement this plan, I always reassured myself that I was fine without a boat. However, I don’t know why, I was strongly drawn to the hill I climbed during my last trip. I wanted to take another look from there at what the outlines of the banks were and where the current was heading. In the end, I couldn’t stand it anymore and set off - this time on foot, along the shore. If a person appeared in England wearing the kind of clothes I was wearing at that time, all passers-by, I am sure, would run away in fear or roar with laughter; and often, looking at myself, I involuntarily smiled, imagining how I was marching through my native Yorkshire with such a retinue and in such attire. On my head stood a pointed, shapeless hat made of goat fur, with a long back-piece falling down my back, which covered my neck from the sun, and during rain prevented water from getting through the collar. In a hot climate, there is nothing more harmful than rain falling behind a dress on a naked body. Then I wore a long camisole of the same material, almost reaching to my knees. The pants were made from the skin of a very old goat with such long hair that they covered my legs up to half of my calves. I didn’t have any stockings at all, and instead of shoes I made myself - I don’t know what to call them - just ankle boots with long laces tied at the side. These shoes were of the strangest kind, as was the rest of my outfit. I tied the camisole together with a wide belt made of goatskin, cleared of hair; I replaced the buckle with two straps, and sewed a loop on the sides - not for a sword and dagger, but for a saw and an ax. In addition, I wore a leather sling over my shoulder, with the same clasps as on the sash, but a little narrower. I attached two bags to this sling so that they fit under my left arm: one contained gunpowder, the other shot. I had a basket hanging behind me, a gun on my shoulder, and a huge fur umbrella over my head. The umbrella was ugly, but it was perhaps the most necessary accessory of my travel equipment. The only thing I needed more than an umbrella was a gun. My complexion was less like a black man than might have been expected, considering that I lived not far from the equator and was not at all afraid of sunburn. First I grew my beard. A beard grew to an exorbitant length. Then I shaved it off, leaving only the mustache; but he grew a wonderful mustache, a real Turkish one. They were of such monstrous length that in England they would frighten passers-by. But I mention all this only in passing: there weren’t too many spectators on the island who could admire my face and posture - so who cares what my appearance was! I spoke about it simply because I had to, and I won’t talk about this subject any more. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Unexpected alarm. Robinson strengthens his home Soon an event occurred that completely disrupted the calm flow of my life. It was about noon. I was walking along the seashore, heading towards my boat, and suddenly, to my great amazement and horror, I saw the footprint of a naked human foot, clearly imprinted on the sand! I stopped and could not move, as if I had been struck by thunder, as if I had seen a ghost. I began to listen, I looked around, but I didn’t hear or see anything suspicious. I ran up the coastal slope to better examine the entire surrounding area; again he went down to the sea, walked a little along the shore - and found nothing anywhere: no signs of the recent presence of people, except for this single footprint. I returned again to the same place. I wanted to know if there were any more prints there. But there were no other prints. Maybe I was imagining things? Maybe this trace does not belong to a person? No, I was not mistaken! It was undoubtedly a human footprint: I could clearly distinguish the heel, toes, and sole. Where did people come from here? How did he get here? I was lost in guesses and could not settle on one. In terrible anxiety, not feeling the ground under my feet, I hurried home, to my fortress. Thoughts were confused in my head. Every two or three steps I looked back. I was afraid of every bush, every tree. From a distance I took each stump for a person. It is impossible to describe what terrible and unexpected forms all the objects took in my excited imagination, what wild, bizarre thoughts worried me at that time and what absurd decisions I made along the way. Having reached my fortress (as from that day on I began to call my home), I instantly found myself behind a fence, as if a pursuit was rushing after me. I couldn’t even remember whether I climbed over the fence using a ladder, as always, or entered through the door, that is, through the outer passage that I dug into the mountain. I couldn’t remember it the next day either. Not a single hare, not a single fox, fleeing in horror from a pack of dogs, hurried to their hole as much as I did. All night I could not sleep and asked myself the same question a thousand times: how could a person get here? This is probably a footprint of some kind. Suddenly I saw the footprint of a naked human foot... of a savage who ended up on the island by accident. Or maybe there were a lot of savages? Maybe they went out to sea on their pirogue and were driven here by the current or the wind? It is quite possible that they visited the shore and then went out to sea again, because they obviously had as little desire to stay in this desert as I had to live next door to them. Of course, they did not notice my boat, otherwise they would have guessed that people lived on the island, would have started looking for them and would undoubtedly have found me. But then a terrible thought burned me: “What if they saw my boat?” This thought tormented and tormented me. “It’s true,” I said to myself, “they went back to sea, but that doesn’t prove anything; they will return, they will certainly return with a whole horde of other savages and then they will find me and eat me. And if they don’t manage to find me , they will still see my fields, my hedges, they will destroy all my grain, steal my flock, and I will have to die of hunger." For the first three days after my terrible discovery, I did not leave my fortress for a minute, so that I even began to go hungry. I did not keep large supplies of provisions at home, and on the third day I had only barley cakes and water left. I was also tormented by the fact that my goats, which I usually milked every evening (this was my daily entertainment), now remained half-milked. I knew that the poor animals must suffer greatly from this; In addition, I was afraid that they might run out of milk. And my fears were justified: many goats fell ill and almost stopped producing milk. On the fourth day I plucked up courage and went out. And then one thought came to me, which finally returned to me my former vigor. In the midst of my fears, when I was rushing from guess to guess and could not stop at anything, it suddenly occurred to me whether I had made up this whole story with the human footprint and whether it was my own footprint. He could have stayed on the sand when I went to look at my boat for the penultimate time. True, I usually returned along a different road, but that was a long time ago and could I say with confidence that I was walking exactly that road and not this one? I tried to assure myself that it was so, that it was my own trace, and that I turned out to be like a fool who composed a tale about a dead man rising from the coffin and was afraid of his own tale. Yes, undoubtedly, it was my own trace! Having strengthened in this confidence, I began to leave the house on various household errands. I began to visit my dacha every day again. There I milked goats and picked grapes. But if you saw how timidly I walked there, how often I looked around, ready at any moment to throw my basket and run away, you would certainly think that I was some kind of terrible criminal, haunted by remorse. However, two more days passed and I became much bolder. I finally convinced myself that all my fears were instilled in me by an absurd mistake, but so that there would be no doubt left, I decided to once again go to the other side and compare the mysterious footprint with the imprint of my foot. If both tracks turn out to be equal in size, I can be sure that the track that scared me was my own and that I was scared of myself. With this decision I set off. But when I came to the place where there was a mysterious trail, it became obvious to me, firstly, that, having gotten out of the boat that time and returning home, I could in no way find myself in this place, and secondly , when I put my foot on the footprint for comparison, my foot turned out to be significantly smaller! My heart was filled with new fears, I trembled as if in a fever; a whirlwind of new guesses swirled in my head. I went home in full conviction that a person had been there on the shore - and maybe not one, but five or six. I was even ready to admit that these people were by no means newcomers, that they were residents of the island. True, until now I have not noticed a single person here, but it is possible that they have been hiding here for a long time and, therefore, can take me by surprise every minute. I racked my brain for a long time on how to protect myself from this danger, but still could not come up with anything. “If the savages,” I said to myself, “find my goats and see my fields with earing grain, they will constantly return to the island for new prey; and if they notice my house, they will certainly begin to look for its inhabitants and eventually get to me". Therefore, I decided in the heat of the moment to break the fences of all my paddocks and let out all my cattle, then, having dug up both fields, destroy the rice and barley seedlings and demolish my hut so that the enemy could not reveal any signs of a person. This decision arose in me immediately after I saw this terrible footprint. The expectation of danger is always worse than the danger itself, and the expectation of evil is ten thousand times worse than the evil itself. I couldn't sleep all night. But in the morning, when I was weak from insomnia, I fell into a deep sleep and woke up as fresh and cheerful as I had not felt for a long time. Now I began to think more calmly and this is what I came to. My island is one of the most beautiful places on earth. There is a wonderful climate, a lot of game, a lot of luxurious vegetation. And so there I picked grapes; since it is located near the mainland, it is not surprising that the savages living there drive up in their pirogues to its shores. However, it is also possible that they are driven here by the current or the wind. Of course, there are no permanent residents here, but there are certainly visiting savages here. However, during the fifteen years that I lived on the island, I have not yet discovered human traces; therefore, even if savages come here, they never stay here for long. And if they have not yet found it profitable or convenient to settle here for a more or less long period of time, one must think that this will continue to be the case. Consequently, the only danger I could face was to stumble upon them during the hours when they were visiting my island. But even if they come, we are unlikely to meet them, since, firstly, the savages have nothing to do here and, whenever they come here, they are probably in a hurry to return home; secondly, it is safe to say that they always stick to the side of the island that is furthest from my home. And since I very rarely go there, I have no reason to be especially afraid of the savages, although, of course, I should still think about a safe shelter where I could hide if they appear on the island again. Now I had to bitterly repent that, while expanding my cave, I took a passage out of it. It was necessary to correct this oversight one way or another. After much thought, I decided to build another fence around my home at such a distance from the previous wall that the exit from the cave would be inside the fortification. However, I didn’t even need to put up a new wall: the double row of trees that I planted twelve years ago in a semicircle along the old fence already provided reliable protection in itself - these trees were planted so densely and grew so much. All that remained was to drive stakes into the gaps between the trees to turn this entire semicircle into a solid, strong wall. So I did. Now my fortress was surrounded by two walls. But my work did not end there. I planted the entire area behind the outer wall with the same trees that looked like willow. They were so well received and grew with extraordinary speed. I think I planted at least twenty thousand of them. But between this grove and the wall I left a fairly large space so that the enemies could be noticed from afar, otherwise they could sneak up to my wall under the cover of the trees. Two years later, a young grove grew green around my house, and after another five or six years, I was surrounded on all sides by a dense forest, completely impenetrable - these trees grew with such monstrous, incredible speed. Not a single person, be he savage or white, could now guess that a house was hidden behind this forest. To enter and leave my fortress (since I did not leave a clearing in the forest), I used a ladder, placing it against the mountain. When the ladder was removed, not a single person could get to me without breaking his neck. This is how much hard work I put on my shoulders just because I imagined that I was in danger! Having lived for so many years as a hermit, far from human society, I gradually became unaccustomed to people, and people began to seem more terrible to me than animals. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Robinson becomes convinced that there are cannibals on his island Two years have passed since the day when I saw the footprint of a human foot in the sand, but the former peace of mind has not returned to me. My serene life is over. Anyone who has had to experience excruciating fear for many years will understand how sad and gloomy my life has become since then. One day, during my wanderings around the island, I reached its western tip, where I had never been before. Before reaching the shore, I climbed a hill. And suddenly it seemed to me that in the distance, on the open sea, I could see a boat. “My vision must be deceiving me,” I thought. “After all, in all these long years, when I peered into the expanses of the sea day after day, I never saw a boat here.” It's a pity that I didn't take my telescope with me. I had several pipes; I found them in one of the chests that I transported from our ship. But, unfortunately, they stayed at home. I could not discern whether it was really a boat, although I stared at the sea for so long that my eyes hurt. Going down to the shore from the hill, I no longer saw anything; I still don’t know what it was. I had to abandon any further observations. But from that time on, I promised myself never to leave the house without a telescope. Having reached the shore - and on this shore I, as already said, had never been - I became convinced that traces of human feet were not at all as rare on my island as I had imagined all these years. Yes, I was convinced that if I had not lived on the east coast, where the pirogues of the savages did not stick, I would have known long ago that they often visit my island and that its western shores serve them not only as a permanent harbor, but also as a place , where during their cruel feasts they kill and eat people! What I saw when I came down from the hillock and came ashore shocked and stunned me. The entire shore was strewn with human skeletons, skulls, bones of arms and legs. I cannot express the horror that gripped me! I knew that wild tribes were constantly at war with each other. They often have sea battles: one boat attacks another. “It must be,” I thought, “after each battle the victors bring their prisoners of war here and here, according to their inhumane custom, they kill and eat them, since they are all cannibals.” Here, not far away, I noticed a round area, in the middle of which the remains of a fire could be seen: this is where these wild people probably sat when they devoured the bodies of their captives. The terrible sight amazed me so much that at the first minute I forgot about the danger I was exposed to by staying on this shore. Outrage at this atrocity drove all fear out of my soul. I had often heard that there were tribes of cannibal savages, but never before had I seen them myself. I turned away with disgust from the remnants of this terrible feast. I felt sick. I almost fainted. I felt like I was going to fall. And when I came to my senses, I felt that I could not stay here for one minute. I ran up the hill and rushed back to the housing. The West Bank was far behind me, and I still could not fully come to my senses. Finally I stopped, came to my senses a little and began to collect my thoughts. The savages, as I was convinced, never came to the island for prey. They must have needed nothing, or perhaps they were sure that nothing of value could be found here. There could be no doubt that they had visited the wooded part of my island more than once, but probably found nothing there that could be useful to them. So, you just need to be careful. If, having lived on the island for almost eighteen years, I have never found human traces until very recently, then, perhaps, I will live here for another eighteen years and will not catch the eye of the savages, unless I stumble upon them by accident. But there is nothing to fear from such an accident, since from now on my only concern should be to hide as best as possible all signs of my presence on the island. I could have seen the savages from somewhere in ambush, but I didn’t want to look at them - the bloodthirsty predators, devouring each other like animals, were so disgusting to me. The very thought that people could be so inhumane filled me with depressing melancholy. For about two years I lived hopelessly in that part of the island where all my possessions were located - a fortress under the mountain, a hut in the forest and that forest clearing where I built a fenced pen for goats. During these two years I never went to look at my boat. “It’s better,” I thought, “I’ll build myself a new ship, and let the old boat remain where it is now. Going out to sea on it would be dangerous. Cannibal savages could attack me there, and, without a doubt, , they will tear me to pieces, like their other captives." But another year passed, and in the end I decided to take my boat out of there: it was very difficult to make a new one! And this new boat would only be ready in two or three years, and until then I would still be deprived of the opportunity to move around the sea. I managed to safely move my boat to the eastern side of the island, where a very convenient bay was found for it, protected on all sides by steep cliffs. There was a sea current along the eastern shores of the island, and I knew that the savages would never dare to land there. It will hardly seem strange to the reader that, under the influence of these worries and horrors, I completely lost the desire to take care of my well-being and future home comforts. My mind has lost all its inventiveness. I had no time to bother about improving food when all I was thinking about was how to save my life. I did not dare to drive a nail or split logs, since it always seemed to me that the savages could hear this knock. I didn’t even dare to shoot. But the main thing was that I was seized with a painful fear every time I had to light a fire, since the smoke, which in daylight is visible at a great distance, could always give me away. For this reason, I moved all the work that required fire (for example, burning pots) to the forest, to my new estate. And in order to cook food and bake bread at home, I decided to get charcoal. This coal produces almost no smoke when burned. As a boy, in my homeland, I saw how it was mined. You need to chop thick branches, put them in one pile, cover them with a layer of turf and burn them. When the branches turned into coal, I dragged this coal home and used it instead of firewood. But one day, when I, starting to make coal, cut down several large bushes at the foot of a high mountain, I noticed a hole under them. I wondered where it might lead. With great difficulty I squeezed through it and found myself in a cave. The cave was very spacious and so high that right there, at the entrance, I could stand up to my full height. But I confess that I got out of there much faster than I got in. Peering into the darkness, I saw two huge burning eyes looking straight at me; they sparkled like stars, reflecting the weak daylight that entered the cave from the outside and fell directly on them. I did not know who these eyes belonged to - the devil or the man, but before I could think of anything, I rushed away from the cave. After some time, however, I came to my senses and called myself a fool a thousand times. “Whoever has lived twenty years alone on a desert island should not be afraid of devils,” I said to myself. “Really, in this cave there is no one more terrible than me.” And, plucking up courage, I grabbed a burning brand and climbed into the cave again. I had barely taken three steps, lighting my path with my torch, when I was frightened again, even more than before: I heard a loud sigh. This is how people sigh in pain. Then there were some intermittent sounds like vague muttering and again a heavy sigh. I backed away and was petrified with horror; cold sweat broke out all over my body and my hair stood on end. If I had a hat on my head, they probably would have thrown it to the ground. But, having gathered all my courage, I moved forward again and, by the light of the brand that I was holding above my head, I saw a huge, monstrously scary old goat on the ground! The goat lay motionless and panted in its death throes; he was obviously dying of old age. I nudged him lightly with my foot to see if he could get up. He tried to get up, but couldn't. “Let him lie there,” I thought. “If he scared me, then how scared will any savage who decides to come here!” However, I am sure that not a single savage or anyone else would have dared to enter the cave. And in general, only a person who, like me, needed a safe refuge, could have thought of crawling into this crevasse. The next day I took with me six large candles of my own making (by that time I had learned to make very good candles from goat fat) and returned to the cave. At the entrance the cave was wide, but gradually became narrower, so that in the depths of it I had to get down on all fours and crawl forward for about ten yards, which was, by the way, quite a brave feat, since I had absolutely no idea where this led. progress and what awaits me ahead. But then I felt that with every step the passage was becoming wider and wider. A little later I tried to get to my feet, and it turned out that I could stand at my full height. The roof of the cave rose twenty feet. I lit two candles and saw such a magnificent picture that I had never seen in my life. I found myself in a spacious grotto. The flames of my two candles were reflected in its sparkling walls. They shone with hundreds of thousands of colorful lights. Were these diamonds or other precious stones embedded in the cave stone? I didn't know this. Most likely it was gold. I never expected that the earth could hide such miracles in its depths. It was an amazing grotto. Its bottom was dry and level, covered with fine sand. Nowhere were disgusting woodlice or worms to be seen, nowhere - neither on the walls nor on the vaults - were there any signs of dampness. The only inconvenience is the narrow entrance, but for me this inconvenience was most valuable, since I spent so much time looking for a safe shelter, and it was difficult to find a safer one than this. I was so happy with my find that I decided to immediately transfer to my grotto most of the things that I especially treasured - first of all, gunpowder and all the spare weapons, that is, two hunting rifles and three muskets. While moving things into my new pantry, I uncorked the wet gunpowder keg for the first time. I was sure that all this gunpowder was worthless, but it turned out that the water penetrated only three or four inches around the barrel; the wet gunpowder hardened and a strong crust formed; in this crust, all the rest of the gunpowder was preserved intact and unharmed, like a nut kernel in a shell. Thus, I suddenly became the owner of new supplies of excellent gunpowder. How happy I was at such a surprise! I carried all this gunpowder - and it turned out to be no less than sixty pounds - into my grotto for greater safety, leaving three or four pounds on hand in case of an attack by savages. I also dragged the entire supply of lead from which I made bullets into the grotto. Now it seemed to me that I looked like one of those ancient giants who, according to legend, lived in rock crevices and caves where it was impossible for any person to reach. “Let,” I said to myself, “even five hundred savages scour the entire island, looking for me; they will never open my hiding place, and if they do, they will never dare to attack it!” The old goat, which I then found in my new cave, died the next day, and I buried him in the ground in the same place where he lay: it was much easier than pulling him out of the cave. It was already the twenty-third year of my stay on the island. I managed to get used to its nature and climate to such an extent that, if I were not afraid of the savages who could come here every minute, I would willingly agree to spend the rest of my days here in captivity until the last hour when I go to bed. and I'll die like that old goat. In recent years, while I still did not know that I was in danger of being attacked by savages, I invented some amusements for myself, which greatly entertained me in my solitude. Thanks to them, I had a much more fun time than before. First, as already said, I taught my Pop to talk, and he chatted with me so friendly, pronouncing the words so separately and clearly, that I listened to him with great pleasure. I don't think any other parrot can talk better than him. He lived with me for at least twenty-six years. I don’t know how long he had left to live; Brazilians claim that parrots live up to a hundred years. I had two more parrots, they also knew how to speak and both shouted: “Robin Crusoe!”, but not nearly as well as Popka. True, I spent much more time and work on his training. My dog ​​has been my most pleasant companion and faithful companion for sixteen years. She later died peacefully of old age, but I will never forget how selflessly she loved me. Those cats that I left in my house have also long ago become full members of my extended family. In addition, I always kept with me two or three kids, which I taught to eat from my hands. And I always had a large number of birds; I caught them on the shore, clipped their wings so that they could not fly away, and soon they became tame and ran to me with a cheerful cry as soon as I appeared on the threshold. The young trees that I planted in front of the fortress have long since grown into a dense grove, and many birds have also settled in this grove. They built nests in low trees and hatched chicks, and all this life boiling around me consoled and delighted me in my loneliness. Thus, I repeat, I would live well and comfortably and I would be completely satisfied with my fate if I were not afraid that savages would attack me. CHAPTER NINETEEN The savages again, visit the spicy Robinson. Ship Wreck December came and it was time to harvest. I worked in the field from morning to evening. And then one day, leaving the house, when it was not yet quite dawn, I, to my horror, saw on the shore, about two miles from my cave, the flames of a large fire. I was dumbfounded with amazement. This means that savages have appeared on my island again! And they appeared not on the side where I had almost never been, but here, not far from me. I hid in the grove that surrounded my house, not daring to take a step, so as not to stumble upon the savages. But even while staying in the grove, I felt great anxiety: I was afraid that if the savages began to snoop around the island and saw my cultivated fields, my herd, my home, they would immediately realize that people lived in these places, and not They'll calm down until they find me. There was no time to hesitate. I quickly returned to my fence, raised the ladder behind me to cover my tracks, and began to prepare for defense. I loaded all my artillery (as I called the muskets that stood on carriages along the outer wall), examined and loaded both pistols and decided to defend myself until my last breath. I stayed in my fortress for about two hours, thinking about what else I could do to protect my fortification. “What a pity that my entire army consists of one person!” I thought. “I don’t even have spies whom I could send on reconnaissance.” I didn’t know what was going on in the enemy camp. This uncertainty tormented me. I grabbed a telescope, placed a ladder against the sloping mountainside and reached the top. There I lay down on my face and pointed the pipe at the place where I saw the fire. The savages, there were nine of them, were sitting around a small fire, completely naked. Of course, they didn’t make a fire to warm themselves; there was no need for that, since it was hot. No, I was sure that on this fire they fried their terrible dinner of human flesh! “Game,” undoubtedly, had already been prepared, but whether it was alive or killed, I did not know. The cannibals arrived on the island in two pirogues, which now stood on the sand: it was low tide, and my terrible guests, apparently, were waiting for the tide to set off on their way back. And so it happened: as soon as the tide began, the savages rushed to the boats and set sail. I forgot to say that an hour or an hour and a half before departure they were dancing on the shore: with the help of a telescope I could clearly distinguish their wild movements and jumps. As soon as I was convinced that the savages had left the island and disappeared, I went down the mountain, threw both guns on my shoulders, tucked two pistols into my belt, as well as my large saber without a scabbard, and, without wasting time, went to the hill from where made his first observations after discovering a human footprint on the shore. Having reached this place (which took at least two hours, as I was loaded with heavy weapons), I looked towards the sea and saw three more pirogues with savages heading from the island to the mainland. This horrified me. I ran to the shore and almost screamed in horror and anger when I saw the remains of the ferocious feast that was taking place there: blood, bones and pieces of human flesh, which these villains had just devoured, having fun and dancing. I was overcome with such indignation, I felt such hatred for these murderers that I wanted to take cruel revenge on them for their bloodthirstiness. I swore to myself that the next time I saw their disgusting feast on the shore again, I would attack them and destroy them all, no matter how many there were. “Let me die in an unequal battle, let them tear me to pieces,” I told myself, “but I can’t allow people to eat people with impunity before my eyes!” However, fifteen months passed and the savages did not appear. All this time my warlike ardor did not fade away: all I could think about was how I could exterminate the cannibals. I decided to attack them by surprise, especially if they again split into two groups, as was the case on their last visit. I didn’t realize then that even if I killed all the savages who came to me (let’s say there were ten or twelve of them), then the next day, or in a week, or maybe in a month I would have to deal with new savages. And there again with new ones, and so on endlessly, until I myself turn into the same terrible killer as these unfortunate ones devouring their fellows. I spent fifteen or sixteen months in constant anxiety. I slept poorly, had terrible dreams every night and often jumped out of bed shaking. Sometimes I dreamed that I was killing savages, and all the details of our battles were vividly depicted in my dreams. During the day, I also did not know a minute of peace. It is quite possible that such violent anxiety would eventually have driven me to madness, if an event had not suddenly happened that immediately diverted my thoughts in another direction. This happened in the twenty-fourth year of my stay on the island, in the middle of May, according to my wretched wooden calendar. All that day, May 16, thunder roared, lightning flashed, and the thunderstorm did not cease for a moment. Late in the evening I read a book, trying to forget my worries. Suddenly I heard a cannon shot. It seemed to me that it came to me from the sea. I jumped out of my seat, instantly placed the ladder on the ledge of the mountain and quickly, quickly, fearing to lose even a second of precious time, began to climb the steps to the top. Just at that moment when I found myself at the top, a light flashed far in front of me in the sea, and indeed half a minute later a second cannon shot was heard. “A ship is dying at sea,” I said to myself. “He is giving signals, he hopes that he will be saved. There must be another ship nearby, to which he is calling for help.” I was very excited, but not at all confused and managed to realize that although I was not able to help these people, perhaps they would help me. In one minute I collected all the dead wood that I found nearby, put it in a pile and lit it. The tree was dry, and, despite the strong wind, the flames of the fire rose so high that the ship, if it really was a ship, could not help but notice my signal. And the fire was undoubtedly noticed, because as soon as the flames of the fire flared up, a new cannon shot was heard, then another and another, all from the same side. I kept the fire going all night - until the morning, and when it was completely dawn and the pre-dawn fog had cleared a little, I saw some dark object in the sea, directly in the east. But whether it was the hull of a ship or a sail, I could not see even with a telescope, since it was very far away, and the sea was still in the darkness. All morning I watched the object visible in the sea and soon became convinced that it was motionless. We could only assume that this was a ship at anchor. I couldn’t stand it, grabbed a gun, a telescope and ran to the south-eastern shore, to the place where the ridge of stones began, going out into the sea. The fog had already cleared, and, having climbed the nearest cliff, I could clearly distinguish the hull of the crashed ship. My heart sank with grief. Apparently, the unfortunate ship ran into invisible underwater rocks at night and got stuck in the place where they blocked the path of the fierce sea current. These were the same rocks that once threatened me with death. If the castaways had spotted the island, in all likelihood they would have lowered their boats and tried to get to shore. But why did they fire their cannons immediately after I lit my fire? Maybe, seeing the fire, they launched a lifeboat and began to row to the shore, but they could not cope with the furious storm, they were carried to the side and drowned? Or maybe even before the crash they were left without boats? After all, during a storm it also happens: when a ship begins to sink, people often have to throw their boats overboard to lighten its load. Maybe this ship was not alone? Maybe there were two or three more ships at sea with him, and they, having heard the signals, swam to the unfortunate fellow and picked up his crew? However, this could hardly have happened: I did not see another ship. But whatever fate befell the unfortunates, I could not help them, and I could only mourn their death. I felt sorry for them and myself. Even more painfully than before, on that day I felt the full horror of my loneliness. As soon as I saw the ship, I realized how much I yearned for people, how passionately I wanted to see their faces, hear their voices, shake their hands, talk to them! From my lips, against my will, the words incessantly flew: “Oh, if only two or three people... no, if only one of them would escape and swim to me! He would be my comrade, my friend, and I I could share both grief and joy with him." Never in all my years of loneliness have I experienced such a passionate desire to communicate with people. "If only there was one! Oh, if only there was one!" - I repeated a thousand times. And these words kindled such melancholy in me that, as I uttered them, I convulsively clenched my fists and clenched my teeth so hard that for a long time I could not unclench them. CHAPTER TWENTY Robinson tries to leave his island Until the last year of my stay on the island, I never found out whether anyone escaped from the lost ship. A few days after the shipwreck, I found on the shore, opposite the place where the ship crashed, the body of a drowned cabin boy. I looked at him with sincere sadness. He had such a sweet, simple-minded young face! Perhaps if he were alive, I would love him and my life would become much happier. But you shouldn’t lament what you can’t turn back anyway. I wandered along the coast for a long time, then again approached the drowned man. He was wearing short canvas trousers, a blue canvas shirt and a sailor jacket. It was impossible to determine by any signs what his nationality was: in his pockets I found nothing except two gold coins and a pipe. The storm had subsided, and I really wanted to take a boat and get to the ship in it. I had no doubt that I would find there a lot of useful things that could be useful to me. But not only this seduced me: most of all, I was excited by the hope that maybe there was some living creature left on the ship that I could save from death. “And if I save him,” I told myself, “my life will become much brighter and more joyful.” This thought took possession of my whole heart: I felt that I would not know peace day or night until I visited the crashed ship. And I said to myself: “Whatever happens, I’ll try to get there. Whatever it costs me, I must go to sea if I don’t want my conscience to torture me.” With this decision, I hastened to return to my fortress and began to prepare for a difficult and dangerous trip. I took bread, a large jug of fresh water, a bottle of rum, a basket of raisins and a compass. Having shouldered all this precious luggage, I went to the shore where my boat stood. Having scooped the water out of it, I put my things in it and returned for a new load. This time I took with me a large bag of rice, a second jug of fresh water, two dozen small barley cakes, a bottle of goat's milk, a piece of cheese and an umbrella. With great difficulty I dragged all this into the boat and set sail. First I rowed and stayed as close to the shore as possible. When I reached the northeastern tip of the island and needed to raise the sail to set off into the open sea, I stopped indecision. “To go or not?.. To take risks or not?” - I asked myself. I looked at the fast stream of sea current that skirted the island, remembered the terrible danger I had been exposed to during my first trip, and little by little my resolve weakened. Here both currents collided, and I saw that, no matter what current I fell into, either of them would carry me far into the open sea. “After all, my boat is so small,” I said to myself, “that as soon as a fresh wind rises, it will immediately be overwhelmed by a wave, and then my death is inevitable.” Under the influence of these thoughts, I became completely timid and was ready to abandon my undertaking. I entered a small cove, moored to the shore, sat down on a hillock and thought deeply, not knowing what to do. But soon the tide began to rise, and I saw that the situation was not so bad at all: it turned out that the flow of the ebb came from the south side of the island, and the flow of the tide from the north, so if I, returning from the wrecked ship, headed towards the north shore of the island, then I will remain safe and sound. So there was nothing to be afraid of. I perked up again and decided to go to sea at first light tomorrow. Night has come. I spent the night in the boat, covered with a sailor's peacoat, and the next morning I set off. At first I set a course for the open sea, due north, until I fell into a current heading east. I was carried away very quickly, and in less than two hours I reached the ship. A gloomy sight appeared before my eyes: a ship (obviously Spanish) got its nose stuck between two cliffs. The stern was blown away; only the bow part survived. Both the mainmast and foremast were cut down. As I approached the side, a dog appeared on the deck. When she saw me, she began to howl and squeal, and when I called her, she jumped into the water and swam to me. I took her into the boat. She was dying of hunger and thirst. I gave her a piece of bread, and she pounced on it like a hungry wolf in a snowy winter. When the dog was full, I gave her some water, and she began to lap it up so greedily that she probably would have burst if she had been given free rein. Then I boarded the ship. The first thing I saw were two corpses; they lay in the wheelhouse, their hands tightly clasped. In all likelihood, when the ship hit the cliff, it was constantly being washed over by huge waves, as there was a strong storm, and these two people, fearing that they would not be washed overboard, grabbed each other and drowned. The waves were so high and washed over the deck so often that the ship, in essence, was under water all the time, and those who were not washed away by the wave drowned in the cabins and in the forecastle. Apart from the dog, there was not a single living creature left on the ship. Most of the things, obviously, were also carried away to the sea, and those that remained became wet. True, there were some barrels of wine or vodka in the hold, but they were so large that I did not try to move them. There were several more chests there that must have belonged to the sailors; I carried two chests to the boat without even trying to open them. If the stern had survived instead of the bow, I probably would have gotten a lot of goods, because even in these two chests I later discovered some valuable things. The ship was obviously very rich. In addition to the chests, I found a barrel of some kind of alcoholic drink on the ship. The cask contained at least twenty gallons, and it took me great trouble to drag it into the boat. In the cabin I found several guns and a large powder flask, containing four pounds of gunpowder. I left the guns, since I didn’t need them, but took the gunpowder. I also took a spatula and coal tongs, which I desperately needed. I took two copper pots and a copper coffee pot. With all this cargo and the dog, I set sail from the ship, as the tide was already beginning to rise. That same day, at one in the morning, I returned to the island, exhausted and extremely tired. I decided to move my prey not to the cave, but to a new grotto, since it was closer there. I again spent the night in the boat, and the next morning, having refreshed myself with food, I unloaded the things I had brought onto the shore and made a detailed inspection of them. There was rum in the barrel, but, I must admit, it was quite bad, much worse than the one we drank in Brazil. But when I opened the chests, I found many useful and valuable things in them. In one of them there was, for example, a cellar * of a very elegant and bizarre shape. In the cellar there were many bottles with beautiful silver stoppers; each bottle contains at least three pints of magnificent, fragrant liqueur. There I also found four jars of excellent candied fruit; Unfortunately, two of them were spoiled by salty sea water, but two were so tightly sealed that not a drop of water penetrated into them. In the chest I found several very strong shirts, and this find made me very happy; then a dozen and a half colored neckerchiefs and the same number of white linen handkerchiefs, which brought me great joy, since on hot days it is very pleasant to wipe your sweaty face with a thin linen handkerchief. At the bottom of the chest I found three bags of money and several small ingots of gold, weighing, I think, about a pound. In another chest there were jackets, trousers and camisoles, rather worn, made of cheap material. Frankly, when I was going to board this ship, I thought that I would find much more useful and valuable things in it. True, I became rich by a fairly large sum, but money was unnecessary garbage to me! I would willingly give all my money for three or four pairs of the most ordinary shoes and stockings, which I have not worn for several years. Having stored the booty in a safe place and leaving my boat there, I set out on the return journey on foot. It was already night when I returned home. Everything was in perfect order at home: calm, cozy and quiet. The parrot greeted me with a kind word, and the kids ran up to me with such joy that I could not help but stroke them and give them fresh ears of grain. From that time on, my former fears seemed to have dissipated, and I lived as before, without any worries, cultivating the fields and caring for my animals, to which I became even more attached than before. So I lived for almost two more years, in complete contentment, without knowing any hardships. But all these two years I was only thinking about how I could leave my island. From the moment I saw the ship that promised me freedom, I began to hate my loneliness even more. I spent my days and nights dreaming of escaping from this prison. If I had a longboat at my disposal, at least like the one on which I fled from the Moors, I would have set off to sea without hesitation, not even caring where the wind would take me. Finally, I came to the conviction that I would be able to break free only if I captured one of the savages who visited my island. The best thing would be to capture one of those unfortunates whom these cannibals brought here to tear to pieces and eat. I will save his life, and he will help me break free. But this plan is very dangerous and difficult: after all, in order to capture the savage I need, I will have to attack a crowd of cannibals and kill every single one, and I will hardly succeed. In addition, my soul shuddered at the thought that I would have to shed so much human blood, even if only for the sake of my own salvation. For a long time there was a struggle within me, but finally the fiery thirst for freedom prevailed over all the arguments of reason and conscience. I decided, whatever the cost, to capture one of the savages the first time they arrived on my island. And so I began to make my way almost every day from my fortress to that distant shore, to which the pirogues of the savages were most likely to land. I wanted to attack these cannibals by surprise. But a year and a half has passed - even more! - and the savages did not show up. In the end, my impatience became so great that I forgot about all caution and for some reason imagined that if I had a chance to meet savages, I could easily cope with not only one, but two or even three! CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Robinson saves the savage and gives him the name Friday Imagine my amazement when, one day leaving the fortress, I saw below, near the very shore (that is, not where I expected to see them), five or six Indian pies. The pies were empty. There were no people visible. They must have gone ashore and disappeared somewhere. Since I knew that each pirogue usually seats six people, or even more, I confess that I was very confused. I never expected that I would have to fight so many enemies. “There are at least twenty of them, and perhaps there will be thirty. How can I defeat them alone!” - I thought with concern. I was indecisive and did not know what to do, but still I sat down in my fortress and prepared for battle. It was quiet all around. I listened for a long time to see if I could hear screams or songs of savages from the other side. Finally I got tired of waiting. I left my guns under the stairs and climbed to the top of the hill. It was dangerous to stick your head out. I hid behind this peak and began to look through the telescope. The savages now returned to their boats. There were at least thirty of them. They lit a fire on the shore and, obviously, cooked some food on the fire. I couldn’t see what they were cooking, I only saw that they were dancing around the fire with frantic jumps and gestures, as savages usually dance. Continuing to look at them through the telescope, I saw that they ran up to the boats, pulled out two people from there and dragged them to the fire. Apparently they intended to kill them. Until this moment, the unfortunate people must have been lying in the boats, tied hand and foot. One of them was instantly knocked down. He was probably hit on the head with a club or a wooden sword, the usual weapon of savages; Now two or three more pounced on him and got to work: they ripped open his stomach and began to gut him. Another prisoner stood nearby, awaiting the same fate. Having taken care of the first victim, his tormentors forgot about him. The prisoner felt free, and, apparently, he had hope of salvation: he suddenly rushed forward and began to run with incredible speed. He ran along the sandy shore in the direction where my home was. I admit, I was terribly scared when I noticed that he was running straight towards me. And how could I not be scared: at the first minute it seemed to me that the whole gang rushed to catch up with him. However, I remained at my post and soon saw that only two or three people were chasing the fugitive, and the rest, having run a short space, gradually fell behind and were now walking back to the fire. This gave me my energy back. But I finally calmed down when I saw that the fugitive was far ahead of his enemies: it was clear that if he managed to run at such speed for another half hour, they would by no means catch him. Those who fled from my fortress were separated by a narrow bay, which I have mentioned more than once - the same one where I landed with my rafts when transporting things from our ship. “What will this poor guy do,” I thought, “when he reaches the bay? He will have to swim across it, otherwise he will not escape the pursuit.” But I worried about him in vain: the fugitive, without hesitation, rushed into the water, quickly swam across the bay, climbed out to the other side and, without slowing down, ran on. Of his three pursuers, only two rushed into the water, and the third did not dare: apparently he did not know how to swim; he stood on the other side, looked after the other two, then turned and slowly walked back. I noticed with joy that the two savages who were chasing the fugitive swam twice as slow as him. And then I realized that the time had come to act. My heart caught fire. “Now or never!” I said to myself and rushed forward. “Save, save this unfortunate man at any cost!” Without wasting time, I ran down the stairs to the foot of the mountain, grabbed the guns left there, then with the same speed climbed the mountain again, went down the other side and ran diagonally straight to the sea to stop the savages. Since I ran down the hillside by the shortest route, I soon found myself between the fugitive and his pursuers. He continued to run without looking back and did not notice me. I shouted to him: - Stop! He looked around and, it seems, at first he was even more frightened of me than of his pursuers. I made a sign with my hand for him to come closer to me, and I walked at a slow pace towards the two fleeing savages. When the one in front caught up with me, I suddenly rushed at him and knocked him down with the butt of my gun. I was afraid to shoot, so as not to alarm the other savages, although they were far away and could hardly hear my shot, and even if they heard it, they still would not have guessed what it was. When one of the runners fell, the other stopped, apparently frightened. Meanwhile, I continued to calmly approach. Po, when, coming closer, I noticed that he had a bow and arrow in his hands and that he was aiming at me, I inevitably had to shoot. I took aim, pulled the trigger and killed him in place. The unfortunate fugitive, despite the fact that I had killed both his enemies (at least so it must have seemed to him), was so frightened by the fire and the roar of the shot that he lost the ability to move; he stood as if nailed to the place, not knowing what to decide: to run away or stay with me, although he would probably prefer to run away if he could. I again began to shout to him and make signs for him to come closer. He understood: he took two steps and stopped, then he took a few more steps and again stood rooted to the spot. Then I noticed that he was trembling all over; the unfortunate man was probably afraid that if he fell into my hands, I would immediately kill him, like those savages. I again made a sign for him to come closer to me, and generally tried in every possible way to encourage him. He came closer and closer to me. Every ten or twelve steps he fell to his knees. Apparently he wanted to express his gratitude to me for saving his life. I smiled affectionately at him and, with the most friendly expression, continued to beckon him with my hand. Finally the savage came very close. He fell to his knees again, kissed the ground, pressed his forehead to it and, lifting my leg, placed it on his head. This apparently meant that he vowed to be my slave until the last day of his life. I picked him up and, with the same gentle, friendly smile, tried to show him that he had nothing to fear from me. But it was necessary to act further. Suddenly I noticed that the savage whom I hit with the butt was not killed, but only stunned. He stirred and began to come to his senses. I pointed to him to the fugitive: “Your enemy is still alive, look!” In response, he uttered a few words, and although I did not understand anything, the very sounds of his speech seemed pleasant and sweet to me: after all, in all twenty-five years of my life on the island, this was the first time I heard a human voice! However, I did not have time to indulge in such thoughts: the cannibal, who had been stunned by me, recovered so much that he was already sitting on the ground, and I noticed that my savage was again beginning to be afraid of him. It was necessary to calm the unfortunate man down. I took aim at his enemy, but then my savage began to show me with signs that I should give him the naked saber hanging from my belt. I handed him the saber. He instantly grabbed it, rushed towards his enemy and with one swing cut off his head. Such art surprised me very much: after all, never in his life had this savage seen any other weapon than wooden swords. Subsequently, I learned that the local savages choose such strong wood for their swords and sharpen them so well that with such a wooden sword you can cut off a head no worse than with a steel one. After this bloody reprisal with his pursuer, my savage (from now on I will call him my savage) returned to me with a cheerful laugh, holding my saber in one hand, and the head of the murdered man in the other, and, performing in front of me a series of some incomprehensible movements , solemnly laid his head and weapon on the ground next to me. He saw me shoot one of his enemies, and it amazed him: he could not understand how you could kill a person at such a great distance. He pointed to the dead man and with signs asked permission to run and look at him. I, also with the help of signs, tried to make it clear that I did not forbid him to fulfill this desire, and he immediately ran there. Approaching the corpse, he was dumbfounded and looked at it in amazement for a long time. Then he leaned over him and began to turn him first on one side, then on the other. Seeing the wound, he looked closely at it. The bullet hit the savage right in the heart, and a little blood came out. Internal hemorrhage occurred and death occurred instantly. Having removed his bow and quiver of arrows from the dead man, my savage ran up to me again. I immediately turned and walked away, inviting him to follow me. I tried to explain to him by signs that it was impossible to stay here, since those savages who were now on the shore could set off in pursuit of him every minute. He also answered me with signs that I should first bury the dead in the sand so that the enemies would not see them if they came running to this place. I expressed my consent (also with the help of signs), and he immediately got to work. With amazing speed, he dug a hole in the sand with his hands so deep that a man could easily fit in it. Then he dragged one of the dead into this hole and covered him with sand; with the other he did exactly the same - in a word, in just a quarter of an hour he buried them both. After that, I ordered him to follow me, and we set off. We walked for a long time, since I led him not to the fortress, but to a completely different direction - to the farthest part of the island, to my new grotto. In the grotto I gave him bread, a branch of raisins and some water. He was especially happy about the water, since after running fast he was very thirsty. When he regained his strength, I showed him the corner of the cave, where I had an armful of rice straw covered with a blanket, and with signs I let him know that he could camp here for the night. The poor fellow lay down and fell asleep instantly. I took the opportunity to get a better look at his appearance. He was a handsome young man, tall, well-built, his arms and legs were muscular, strong and at the same time extremely graceful; He looked about twenty-six years old. I didn’t notice anything gloomy or ferocious in his face; it was a courageous and at the same time gentle and pleasant face, and often an expression of meekness appeared on it, especially when he smiled. His hair was black and long; they fell on the face in straight strands. The forehead is high, open; The skin color is dark brown, very pleasing to the eye. The face is round, the cheeks are full, the nose is small. The mouth is beautiful, the lips are thin, the teeth are even, white as ivory. He slept for no more than half an hour, or rather, he did not sleep, but dozed, then he jumped to his feet and came out of the cave to me. I was right there in the pen, milking my goats. As soon as he saw me, he ran up to me and again fell to the ground before me, expressing by all possible signs the most humble gratitude and devotion. Falling face down to the ground, he again placed my foot on his head and, in general, in every way available to him, tried to prove to me his boundless submission and make me understand that from that day on he would serve me all his life. I understood much of what he wanted to tell me, and tried to convince him that I was completely satisfied with him. From that day I began to teach him the necessary words. First of all, I told him that I would call him Friday (I chose this name for him in memory of the day I saved his life). Then I taught him to say my name, taught him to say “yes” and “no” and explained the meaning of these words. I brought him milk in a clay jug and showed him how to dip bread in it. He immediately learned all this and began to show me with signs that he liked my treat. We spent the night in the grotto, but as soon as morning came, I ordered Friday to follow me and led him to my fortress. I explained that I wanted to give him some clothes. He was apparently very happy, since he was completely naked. When we passed by the place where both savages killed the day before were buried, he pointed out their graves to me and tried in every possible way to explain to me that we should dig up both corpses in order to eat them immediately. Then I pretended that I was terribly angry, that I was disgusted even to hear about such things, that I started vomiting at the mere thought of it, that I would despise and hate him if he touched the murdered. Finally, I made a decisive gesture with my hand, ordering him to move away from the graves; he immediately left with the greatest humility. After that, he and I climbed the hill, because I wanted to see if the savages were still here. I took out a telescope and pointed it at the place where I saw them the day before. But there was no trace of them: there was not a single boat on the shore. I had no doubt that the savages left without even bothering to look for their two comrades who remained on the island. I was, of course, happy about this, but I wanted to collect more accurate information about my uninvited guests. After all, now I was no longer alone, Friday was with me, and this made me much braver, and along with courage curiosity awoke in me. One of the dead was left with a bow and quiver of arrows. I allowed Friday to take this weapon and from then on he did not part with it, night or day. I soon had to make sure that my savage was a master with a bow and arrow. In addition, I armed him with a saber, gave him one of my guns, and I myself took the other two, and we set off. When we arrived at the place where the cannibals were feasting yesterday, such a terrible sight met our eyes that my heart sank and my blood froze in my veins. But Friday remained completely calm: such sights were nothing new to him. The ground was covered in blood in many places. Large pieces of fried human meat were lying around. The entire shore was strewn with human bones: three skulls, five arms, bones from three or four legs and many other skeletal parts. Friday told me by signs that the savages brought with them four prisoners: they ate three, and he was the fourth. (Here he poked his finger in the chest.) Of course, I did not understand everything he told me, but I managed to catch something. According to him, a few days ago, the savages, subject to one hostile prince, had a very big battle with the tribe to which he, Friday, belonged. The alien savages won and captured a lot of people. The victors divided the prisoners among themselves and took them to different places to kill and eat, exactly the same as that detachment of savages did who chose one of the shores of my island as a place for a feast. I ordered Friday to build a big fire, then collect all the bones, all the pieces of meat, dump them into this fire and burn them. I noticed that he really wanted to feast on human flesh (and this is not surprising: after all, he was also a cannibal!). But I again showed him by all kinds of signs that the very thought of such an act seemed disgusting to me, and immediately threatened him that I would kill him at the slightest attempt to violate my prohibition. After that we returned to the fortress, and without delay I began to trim my savage. First of all, I put his pants on. In one of the chests I took from the lost ship, I found a ready-made pair of canvas trousers; they only had to be slightly altered. Then I sewed him a jacket from goat fur, using all my skill to make the jacket come out better (I was already quite a skilled tailor at that time), and made for him a hat from hare skins, very comfortable and quite beautiful. Thus, for the first time he was dressed from head to toe and was apparently very pleased that his clothes were no worse than mine. True, out of habit, he felt awkward in clothes, since he had been naked all his life; His pants especially bothered him. He also complained about the jacket: he said that the sleeves pressed under his arms and rubbed his shoulders. I had to change some things, but little by little he got over it and got used to it. The next day I began to think about where I should place it. I wanted to make him more comfortable, but I was not yet entirely confident in him and was afraid to put him in my place. I pitched a small tent for him in the free space between the two walls of my fortress, so that he found himself outside the fence of the courtyard where my dwelling stood. But these precautions turned out to be completely unnecessary. Soon Friday proved to me in practice how selflessly he loves me. I could not help but recognize him as a friend and ceased to be wary of him. Never has a single person had such a loving, such a faithful and devoted friend. He showed neither irritability nor guile towards me; always helpful and friendly, he was attached to me like a child to his own father. I am convinced that, if necessary, he would gladly sacrifice his life for me. I was very happy that I finally had a comrade, and promised myself to teach him everything that could benefit him, and above all to teach him to speak the language of my homeland so that he and I could understand each other. Friday turned out to be such a capable student that one could not have wished for anything better. But the most valuable thing about him was that he studied so diligently, listened to me with such joyful readiness, was so happy when he understood what I wanted from him, that it turned out to be a great pleasure for me to give him lessons and talk with him. Since Friday was with me, my life has become pleasant and easy. If I could consider myself safe from other savages, I really, it seems, would, without regret, agree to remain on the island until the end of my days. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Robinson talks with Friday and teaches him Two or three days after Friday settled in my fortress, it occurred to me that if I wanted him not to eat human flesh, I should accustom him to animal meat. “Let him try goat meat,” I said to myself and decided to take him hunting with me. Early in the morning we went into the forest with him and, two or three miles from the house, we saw a wild goat with two kids under a tree. I grabbed Friday by the hand and motioned for him not to move. Then, at a great distance, I took aim, shot and killed one of the kids.

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Chapter 15

Robinson builds another boat, smaller, and tries to go around the island

Another five years passed, and during that time, as far as I can remember, no extraordinary events occurred.

My life proceeded as before - quietly and peacefully; I lived in the old place and still devoted all my time to work and hunting.

Now I already had so much grain that my sowing was enough for me for a whole year; There were also plenty of grapes. But because of this, I had to work even more in the forest and in the field than before.

However, my main job was building a new boat. This time I not only made the boat, but also launched it: I took it into the cove along a narrow channel that I had to dig for half a mile. As the reader already knows, I made my first boat of such enormous size that I was forced to leave it at the site of its construction as a monument to my stupidity. He constantly reminded me to be smarter from now on.

Now I was much more experienced. True, this time I built the boat almost half a mile from the water, since I could not find a suitable tree closer, but I was confident that I would be able to launch it. I saw that the work I had started this time did not exceed my strength, and I firmly decided to complete it. For almost two years I fussed over the construction of the boat. I so passionately wanted to finally have the opportunity to sail the sea that I spared no effort.

It should be noted, however, that I did not build this new pirogue in order to leave my island. I had to say goodbye to this dream a long time ago. The boat was so small that there was no point in even thinking about sailing on it those forty or more miles that separated my island from the mainland. Now I had a more modest goal: to go around the island - and that’s all. I had already visited the opposite shore once, and the discoveries I made there interested me so much that even then I wanted to explore the entire coastline surrounding me.

And now, when I had a boat, I decided to go around my island by sea at all costs. Before setting off, I carefully prepared for the upcoming voyage. I made a tiny mast for my boat and sewed the same tiny sail from pieces of canvas, which I had a fair supply of.

When the boat was rigged, I tested her progress and found that she sailed quite satisfactorily. Then I built small boxes on the stern and bow to protect provisions, charges and other necessary things that I would take with me on the journey from rain and waves. For the gun, I hollowed out a narrow groove in the bottom of the boat.

Then I strengthened the open umbrella, giving it a position so that it was above my head and protected me from the sun, like a canopy.

* * *

Until now I had taken short walks along the sea from time to time, but had never gone far from my bay. Now, when I intended to inspect the borders of my small state and equipped my ship for a long voyage, I carried there the wheat bread I had baked, a clay pot of fried rice and half a goat carcass.

I drove much longer than I expected. The fact is that although my island itself was small, when I turned to the eastern part of its coast, an unforeseen obstacle arose in front of me. At this point a narrow ridge of rocks separates from the shore; some of them stick out above the water, others are hidden in the water. The ridge extends for six miles into the open sea, and further, behind the rocks, a sandbank stretches for another mile and a half. Thus, in order to go around this spit, we had to drive quite far from the coast. It was very dangerous.

I even wanted to turn back, because I could not determine with accuracy how far I would have to go in the open sea before I rounded the ridge of underwater rocks, and I was afraid to take risks. And besides, I didn’t know if I would be able to turn back. Therefore, I dropped the anchor (before setting off, I made myself some kind of anchor from a piece of an iron hook that I found on the ship), took the gun and went ashore. Having spotted a fairly high hill nearby, I climbed up it, measured by eye the length of the rocky ridge, which was clearly visible from here, and decided to take a chance.

But before I had time to reach this ridge, I found myself at a terrible depth and then fell into a powerful stream of the sea current. I was spun around as if in a mill sluice, picked up and carried away. There was no point in thinking about turning towards the shore or turning to the side. All I could do was stay close to the edge of the current and try not to get caught in the middle.

Meanwhile, I was carried further and further. If there had been even a slight breeze, I could have raised the sail, but the sea was completely calm. I worked the oars with all my might, but I could not cope with the current and was already saying goodbye to life. I knew that in a few miles the current in which I found myself would merge with another current going around the island, and that if I did not manage to turn aside before then, I would be irrevocably lost. Meanwhile, I didn’t see any possibility of turning around.

There was no salvation: certain death awaited me - and not in the waves of the sea, because the sea was calm, but from hunger. True, on the shore I found a turtle so large that I could barely lift it, and I took it with me into the boat. I also had a decent supply of fresh water - I took the largest of my clay jugs. But what did this mean for a miserable creature, lost in a boundless ocean, where you can swim a thousand miles without seeing any sign of land!

I now remembered my deserted, abandoned island as an earthly paradise, and my only desire was to return to this paradise. I passionately extended my arms to him.

- O desert, which gave me happiness! - I exclaimed. - I will never see you again. Oh, what will happen to me? Where are the merciless waves taking me? How ungrateful I was when I grumbled about my loneliness and cursed this beautiful island!

Yes, now my island was dear and sweet to me, and it was bitter for me to think that I had to say goodbye forever to the hope of seeing it again.

I was carried and carried into the boundless watery distance. But, although I felt mortal fear and despair, I still did not give in to these feelings and continued to row without ceasing, trying to steer the boat north to cross the current and go around the reefs.

Suddenly, around noon, a breeze picked up. This encouraged me. But imagine my joy when the breeze began to quickly freshen and after half an hour turned into a good breeze!

By this time I had been driven far from my island. If the fog had risen at that time, I would have died!

I did not have a compass with me, and if I had lost sight of my island, I would not have known where to go. But, fortunately for me, it was a sunny day and there was no sign of fog.

I set the mast, raised the sail and began to steer north, trying to get out of the current.

As soon as my boat turned into the wind and went against the current, I noticed a change in it: the water became much lighter. I realized that for some reason the current was beginning to weaken, because before, when it was faster, the water was cloudy all the time. And indeed, soon I saw cliffs to my right, in the east (they could be distinguished from afar by the white foam of the waves seething around each of them). It was these cliffs that slowed down the flow, blocking its path.

I soon became convinced that they not only slowed down the current, but also split it into two streams, of which the main one deviated only slightly to the south, leaving the cliffs to the left, and the other turned sharply back and headed northwest.

Only those who know from experience what it means to receive a pardon while standing on the scaffold, or to escape from robbers at that last minute when a knife is already pressed to the throat, will understand my delight at this discovery.

With my heart beating with joy, I sent my boat into the opposite stream, set the sail to a fair wind, which became even more refreshing, and rushed back merrily.

At about five o'clock in the evening I approached the shore and, having looked for a convenient place, moored.

It is impossible to describe the joy that I experienced when I felt solid ground beneath me!

How sweet every tree of my blessed island seemed to me!

With hot tenderness I looked at these hills and valleys, which only yesterday caused melancholy in my heart. How glad I was that I would again see my fields, my groves, my cave, my faithful dog, my goats! How beautiful the road from the shore to my hut seemed to me!

It was already evening when I reached my forest dacha. I climbed over the fence, lay down in the shade and, feeling terribly tired, soon fell asleep.

But what was my surprise when someone’s voice woke me up. Yes, it was the voice of a man! Here on the island there was a man, and he shouted loudly in the middle of the night:

- Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe! Poor Robin Crusoe! Where have you gone, Robin Crusoe? Where did you end up? Where have you been?

Exhausted by the long rowing, I slept so soundly that I could not immediately wake up, and for a long time it seemed to me that I heard this voice in my sleep.

But the cry was insistently repeated:

- Robin Crusoe, Robin Crusoe!

Finally I woke up and realized where I was. My first feeling was terrible fear. I jumped up, looking around wildly, and suddenly, raising my head, I saw my parrot on the fence.

Of course, I immediately guessed that it was he who shouted these words: in exactly the same plaintive voice, I often spoke these very phrases in front of him, and he confirmed them perfectly. He would sit on my finger, bring his beak close to my face and wail sadly: “Poor Robin Crusoe! Where have you been and where have you ended up?

But, even after making sure that it was a parrot, and realizing that there was no one else to be here except the parrot, I could not calm down for a long time.

I didn’t understand at all, firstly, how he got to my dacha, and secondly, why he flew here and not to another place.

But since I didn’t have the slightest doubt that it was him, my faithful Popka, then, without racking my brains over questions, I called him by name and extended my hand to him. The sociable bird immediately sat on my finger and repeated again:

- Poor Robin Crusoe! Where did you end up?

Popka was definitely happy to see me again. Leaving the hut, I put him on my shoulder and took him with me.

The unpleasant adventures of my sea expedition for a long time discouraged me from sailing the sea, and for many days I reflected on the dangers to which I was exposed when I was carried into the ocean.

Of course, it would be nice to have a boat on this side of the island, closer to my house, but how can I get it back from where I left it? To go around my island from the east - just the thought of it made my heart clench and my blood run cold. I had no idea what things were like on the other side of the island. What if the current on the other side is as fast as the current on this side? Couldn't it throw me onto the coastal rocks with the same force with which another current carried me into the open sea? In a word, although building this boat and launching it cost me a lot of work, I decided that it was still better to be left without a boat than to risk my head for it.

It must be said that I have now become much more skilled in all the manual works that the conditions of my life required. When I found myself on the island, I had absolutely no skill with an axe, but now I could, given the opportunity, pass for a good carpenter, especially considering how few tools I had.

I also (quite unexpectedly!) made a big step forward in pottery: I built a machine with a rotating wheel, which made my work faster and better; Now, instead of clumsy products that were disgusting to look at, I had very good dishes with a fairly regular shape.

But never, it seems, have I been so happy and proud of my ingenuity as on the day when I managed to make a pipe. Of course, my pipe was of a primitive type - made of simple baked clay, like all my pottery, and it did not turn out very beautiful. But it was strong enough and passed smoke well, and most importantly, it was still the pipe that I had dreamed about so much, since I had been accustomed to smoking for a very long time. There were pipes on our ship, but when I transported things from there, I did not know that tobacco grew on the island, and I decided that it was not worth taking them.

By this time I discovered that my supplies of gunpowder were beginning to noticeably decrease. This alarmed and upset me extremely, since there was nowhere to get new gunpowder. What will I do when all my gunpowder runs out? How will I hunt goats and birds then? Will I really be left without meat food for the rest of my days?

Chapter 16

Robinson taming wild goats

In the eleventh year of my stay on the island, when my gunpowder began to run low, I began to seriously think about how to find a way to catch wild goats alive. Most of all I wanted to catch the queen with her kids. At first I set snares, and the goats often got caught in them. But this was of little use to me: the goats ate the bait, and then broke the snare and calmly ran away into freedom. Unfortunately, I didn't have any wire, so I had to make a snare out of string.

Then I decided to try wolf pits. Knowing the places where the goats grazed most often, I dug three deep holes there, covered them with wickerwork of my own making, and placed an armful of ears of rice and barley on each wicker. Soon I became convinced that goats were visiting my pits: the ears of corn were eaten and traces of goat hooves were visible all around. Then I set up real traps and the next day I found a large old goat in one hole, and three kids in another: one male and two females.

I released the old goat because I didn’t know what to do with him. He was so wild and angry that it was impossible to take him alive (I was afraid to go into his hole), and there was no need to kill him. As soon as I lifted the braid, he jumped out of the hole and started running as fast as he could.

Subsequently, I had to discover that hunger tames even lions. But I didn't know that then. If I made the goat fast for three or four days, and then brought him water and some ears of corn, he would become as docile as my kids.

Goats are generally very smart and obedient. If you treat them well, they don't cost anything to tame.

But, I repeat, at that time I did not know this. Having released the goat, I went to the hole where the kids were sitting, pulled out all three one by one, tied them together with a rope and with difficulty dragged them home.

For quite a long time I could not get them to eat. Besides mother's milk, they did not yet know any other food. But when they got pretty hungry, I threw them a few juicy ears of corn, and little by little they began to eat. Soon they got used to me and became completely tame.

Since then I started raising goats. I wanted to have a whole herd, since this was the only way to provide myself with meat by the time I ran out of gunpowder and shot.

A year and a half later, I already had at least twelve goats, including kids, and two years later my herd had grown to forty-three heads. Over time I set up five fenced paddocks; they were all connected to each other by gates so that the goats could be driven from one meadow to another.

I now had an inexhaustible supply of goat meat and milk. Frankly, when I started raising goats, I didn’t even think about milk. Only later did I start milking them.

I think that the most gloomy and gloomy person could not resist smiling if he saw me with my family at the dinner table. At the head of the table sat I, the king and ruler of the island, who had complete control over the lives of all my subjects: I could execute and pardon, give and take away freedom, and among my subjects there was not a single rebel.

You should have seen with what royal pomp I dined alone, surrounded by my courtiers. Only Popka, as a favorite, was allowed to talk to me. The dog, which had long since become decrepit, always sat at the right hand of its master, and the cats sat on the left, waiting for handouts from my own hands. Such a handout was considered a sign of special royal favor.

These were not the same cats that I brought from the ship. They died long ago, and I personally buried them near my home. One of them has already calved on the island; I left a couple of kittens with me, and they grew up tame, and the rest ran into the forest and became wild. In the end, so many cats bred on the island that there was no end to them: they climbed into my pantry, carried provisions and left me alone only when I shot two or three.

I repeat, I lived like a real king, not needing anything; Next to me there was always a whole staff of courtiers devoted to me - there were only people. However, as the reader will see, the time soon came when too many people appeared in my domain.

I was determined never to undertake dangerous sea voyages again, and yet I really wanted to have a boat at hand - if only to make a trip in it close to the shore! I often thought about how I could get her to the other side of the island where my cave was. But, realizing that it was difficult to implement this plan, I always reassured myself that I was fine without a boat.

However, I don’t know why, I was strongly drawn to the hill I climbed during my last trip. I wanted to take another look from there at what the outlines of the banks were and where the current was heading. In the end, I couldn’t stand it anymore and set off on my way – this time on foot, along the shore.

If a person appeared in England wearing the kind of clothes I was wearing at that time, all the passers-by, I am sure, would run away in fear or roar with laughter; and often, looking at myself, I involuntarily smiled, imagining how I was marching through my native Yorkshire with such a retinue and in such attire.

On my head stood a pointed, shapeless hat made of goat fur, with a long back-piece falling down my back, which covered my neck from the sun, and during rain prevented water from getting through the collar. In a hot climate, there is nothing more harmful than rain falling behind a dress on a naked body.

Then I wore a long camisole of the same material, almost reaching to my knees. The pants were made from the skin of a very old goat with such long hair that they covered my legs up to half of my calves. I didn’t have any stockings at all, and instead of shoes I made myself—I don’t know what to call them—simply ankle boots with long laces tied at the side. These shoes were of the strangest kind, as was the rest of my outfit.

I tied the camisole with a wide belt made of goat skin, cleaned of wool; I replaced the buckle with two straps, and sewed a loop on the sides - not for a sword and dagger, but for a saw and an ax.

In addition, I wore a leather sling over my shoulder, with the same clasps as on the sash, but a little narrower. I attached two bags to this sling so that they fit under my left arm: one contained gunpowder, the other shot. I had a basket hanging behind me, a gun on my shoulder, and a huge fur umbrella over my head. The umbrella was ugly, but it was perhaps the most necessary accessory of my travel equipment. The only thing I needed more than an umbrella was a gun.

My complexion was less like a Negro than might have been expected, considering that I lived not far from the equator and was not at all afraid of sunburn. First I grew my beard. A beard grew to an exorbitant length. Then I shaved it off, leaving only the mustache; but he grew a wonderful mustache, a real Turkish one. They were of such monstrous length that in England they would frighten passersby.

But I mention all this only in passing: there weren’t too many spectators on the island who could admire my face and posture - so who cares what my appearance was! I spoke about it simply because I had to, and I won’t talk about this subject any more.

Chapter 17

Unexpected alarm. Robinson strengthens his home

Soon an event occurred that completely disrupted the calm flow of my life.

It was about noon. I was walking along the seashore, heading towards my boat, and suddenly, to my great amazement and horror, I saw the footprint of a naked human foot, clearly imprinted on the sand!

I stopped and could not move, as if I had been struck by thunder, as if I had seen a ghost.

I began to listen, I looked around, but I didn’t hear or see anything suspicious.

I ran up the coastal slope to better examine the entire surrounding area; again he went down to the sea, walked a little along the shore - and found nothing anywhere: no signs of the recent presence of people, except for this single footprint.

I returned again to the same place. I wanted to know if there were any more prints there. But there were no other prints. Maybe I was imagining things? Maybe this trace does not belong to a person? No, I was not mistaken! It was undoubtedly a human footprint: I could clearly distinguish the heel, toes, and sole. Where did people come from here? How did he get here? I was lost in guesses and could not settle on one.

In terrible anxiety, not feeling the ground under my feet, I hurried home, to my fortress. Thoughts were confused in my head.

Every two or three steps I looked back. I was afraid of every bush, every tree. From a distance I took each stump for a person.

It is impossible to describe what terrible and unexpected forms all the objects took in my excited imagination, what wild, bizarre thoughts worried me at that time and what absurd decisions I made along the way.

Having reached my fortress (as from that day on I began to call my home), I instantly found myself behind a fence, as if a pursuit was rushing after me. I couldn’t even remember whether I climbed over the fence using a ladder, as always, or entered through the door, that is, through the outer passage that I dug into the mountain. I couldn’t remember it the next day either.

Not a single hare, not a single fox, fleeing in horror from a pack of dogs, hastened to their hole as much as I did.

All night I could not sleep and asked myself the same question a thousand times: how could a person get here?

This is probably the footprint of some savage who came to the island by accident. Or maybe there were a lot of savages? Maybe they went out to sea on their pirogue and were driven here by the current or the wind? It is quite possible that they visited the shore and then went out to sea again, because they obviously had as little desire to remain in this desert as I had to live next door to them.

Of course, they did not notice my boat, otherwise they would have guessed that people lived on the island, would have started looking for them and would undoubtedly have found me.

But then a terrible thought struck me: “What if they saw my boat?” This thought tormented and tormented me.

“It’s true,” I said to myself, “they went back to sea, but that doesn’t prove anything; they will return, they will certainly return with a whole horde of other savages and then they will find me and eat me. And even if they don’t manage to find me, they will still see my fields, my hedges, they will destroy all my grain, steal my flock, and I will have to die of hunger.”

For the first three days after my terrible discovery, I did not leave my fortress for a minute, so that I even began to go hungry. I did not keep large supplies of provisions at home, and on the third day I had only barley cakes and water left.

I was also tormented by the fact that my goats, which I usually milked every evening (this was my daily entertainment), were now left unfinished. I knew that the poor animals must suffer greatly from this; Besides, I was afraid that they might run out of milk. And my fears were justified: many goats fell ill and almost stopped producing milk.

On the fourth day I plucked up courage and went out. And then one thought came to me that finally returned to me my former vigor. In the midst of my fears, when I was rushing from guess to guess and could not stop at anything, it suddenly occurred to me whether I had made up this whole story with the human footprint and whether it was my own footprint. He could have stayed on the sand when I went to look at my boat for the penultimate time. True, I usually returned along a different road, but that was a long time ago and could I say with confidence that I was walking exactly that road and not this one?

I tried to assure myself that it was so, that this was my own trace and that I turned out to be like a fool who composed a tale about a dead man rising from the coffin and was afraid of his own tale.

Yes, undoubtedly, it was my own trace!

Having strengthened in this confidence, I began to leave the house on various household errands. I began to visit my dacha every day again. There I milked goats and picked grapes. But if you had seen how timidly I walked there, how often I looked around, ready at any moment to throw my basket and run away, you would certainly think that I was some kind of terrible criminal, haunted by remorse. However, two more days passed and I became much bolder. I finally convinced myself that all my fears were instilled in me by an absurd mistake, but so that there would be no doubt left, I decided to once again go to the other side and compare the mysterious footprint with the imprint of my foot. If both tracks turn out to be equal in size, I can be sure that the track that scared me was my own and that I was scared of myself.

With this decision I set off. But when I came to the place where there was a mysterious trail, it became obvious to me, firstly, that, having gotten out of the boat that time and returning home, I could in no way find myself in this place, and secondly , when I put my foot on the footprint for comparison, my foot turned out to be significantly smaller!

My heart was filled with new fears, I trembled as if in a fever; a whirlwind of new guesses swirled in my head. I went home in full conviction that a person had been there on the shore - and maybe not just one, but five or six.

I was even ready to admit that these people were by no means newcomers, that they were residents of the island. True, until now I have not noticed a single person here, but it is possible that they have been hiding here for a long time and, therefore, can take me by surprise at any moment.

I racked my brain for a long time on how to protect myself from this danger, but still could not come up with anything.

“If the savages,” I said to myself, “find my goats and see my fields with earing grain, they will constantly return to the island for new prey; and if they notice my house, they will certainly begin to look for its inhabitants and will eventually get to me.”

Therefore, I decided in the heat of the moment to break the fences of all my pens and let out all my cattle, then, having dug up both fields, destroy the rice and barley seedlings and demolish my hut so that the enemy could not discover any sign of a person.

This decision arose in me immediately after I saw this terrible footprint. The expectation of danger is always worse than the danger itself, and the expectation of evil is ten thousand times worse than the evil itself.

I couldn't sleep all night. But in the morning, when I was weak from insomnia, I fell into a deep sleep and woke up as fresh and cheerful as I had not felt for a long time.

Now I began to think more calmly and this is what I came to. My island is one of the most beautiful places on earth. There is a wonderful climate, a lot of game, a lot of luxurious vegetation. And since it is located near the mainland, it is not surprising that the savages living there drive up in their pirogues to its shores. However, it is also possible that they are driven here by the current or the wind. Of course, there are no permanent residents here, but there are certainly visiting savages here. However, during the fifteen years that I lived on the island, I have not yet discovered human traces; therefore, even if savages come here, they never stay here for long. And if they have not yet found it profitable or convenient to settle here for a more or less long period, one must think that this will continue to be the case.

Consequently, the only danger I could face was to stumble upon them during the hours when they were visiting my island. But even if they come, we are unlikely to meet them, since, firstly, the savages have nothing to do here and, whenever they come here, they are probably in a hurry to return home; secondly, it is safe to say that they always stick to the side of the island that is furthest from my home.

And since I very rarely go there, I have no reason to be especially afraid of the savages, although, of course, I should still think about a safe haven where I could hide if they appear on the island again. Now I had to bitterly repent that, by expanding my cave, I had taken a passage out of it. It was necessary to correct this oversight one way or another. After much thought, I decided to build another fence around my home at such a distance from the previous wall that the exit from the cave would be inside the fortification.

However, I didn’t even need to put up a new wall: the double row of trees that I planted twelve years ago in a semicircle along the old fence already provided reliable protection in itself - these trees were planted so densely and grew so much. All that remained was to drive stakes into the gaps between the trees to turn this entire semicircle into a solid, strong wall. So I did.

Now my fortress was surrounded by two walls. But my work did not end there. I planted the entire area behind the outer wall with the same trees that looked like willow. They were so well received and grew with extraordinary speed. I think I planted at least twenty thousand of them. But between this grove and the wall I left a fairly large space so that the enemies could be noticed from afar, otherwise they could sneak up on my wall under the cover of the trees.

Two years later, a young grove grew green around my house, and after another five or six years, I was surrounded on all sides by a dense forest, completely impenetrable - these trees grew with such monstrous, incredible speed. Not a single person, be he savage or white, could now guess that a house was hidden behind this forest. To enter and leave my fortress (since I did not leave a clearing in the forest), I used a ladder, placing it against the mountain. When the ladder was removed, not a single person could get to me without breaking his neck.

This is how much hard work I put on my shoulders just because I imagined that I was in danger! Having lived for so many years as a hermit, far from human society, I gradually became unaccustomed to people, and people began to seem more terrible to me than animals.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 1
Robinson Crusoe loved the sea from early childhood. At the age of eighteen, on September 1, 1651, against the wishes of his parents, he and a friend set off on the ship of the latter’s father from Hull to London.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 2

On the very first day, the ship encounters a storm. While the hero is suffering from seasickness, he makes a promise never to leave solid land again, but as soon as calm sets in, Robinson immediately gets drunk and forgets about his vows.

While anchored in Yarmouth, the ship sinks during a violent storm. Robinson Crusoe and his team miraculously escape death, but shame prevents him from returning home, so he sets off on a new journey.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 3

In London, Robinson Crusoe meets an old captain, who takes him with him to Guinea, where the hero profitably exchanges trinkets for gold dust.

During the second voyage, made after the death of the old captain, between the Canary Islands and Africa, the ship is attacked by Turks from Saleh. Robinson Crusoe becomes the slave of a pirate captain. In the third year of slavery, the hero manages to escape. He deceives the old Moor Ismail, who is looking after him, and goes out to the open sea on the master's boat with the boy Xuri.

Robinson Crusoe and Xuri are swimming along the shore. At night they hear the roar of wild animals, and during the day they land on the shore to get fresh water. One day the heroes kill a lion. Robinson Crusoe is on his way to Cape Verde, where he hopes to meet a European ship.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 4

Robinson Crusoe and Xuri replenish provisions and water from friendly savages. In exchange, they give them the killed leopard. After some time, the heroes are picked up by a Portuguese ship.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 5

The captain of the Portuguese ship buys things from Robinson Crusoe and delivers him safe and sound to Brazil. Xuri becomes a sailor on his ship.

Robinson Crusoe has lived in Brazil for four years, where he grows sugar cane. He makes friends, to whom he tells about two trips to Guinea. One day they come to him with an offer to make another trip in order to exchange trinkets for gold sand. On September 1, 1659, the ship sails from the coast of Brazil.

On the twelfth day of the voyage, after crossing the equator, the ship encounters a storm and runs aground. The team transfers to the boat, but it also goes to the bottom. Robinson Crusoe is the only one who escaped death. At first he rejoices, then mourns his fallen comrades. The hero spends the night on a spreading tree.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 6

In the morning, Robinson Crusoe discovers that a storm has washed the ship closer to the shore. On the ship, the hero finds dry provisions and rum. He builds a raft from spare masts, on which he transports ship planks, food supplies (food and alcohol), clothing, carpenter's tools, weapons and gunpowder to the shore.

Having climbed to the top of the hill, Robinson Crusoe realizes that he is on an island. Nine miles to the west, he sees two more small islands and reefs. The island turns out to be uninhabited, inhabited by a large number of birds and devoid of danger in the form of wild animals.

In the first days, Robinson Crusoe transports things from the ship and builds a tent from sails and poles. He makes eleven trips: first picking up what he can lift, and then dismantling the ship into pieces. After the twelfth swim, during which Robinson takes away knives and money, a storm rises at sea, consuming the remains of the ship.

Robinson Crusoe chooses a place to build a house: on a smooth, shady clearing on the slope of a high hill, which overlooks the sea. The installed double tent is surrounded by a high palisade, which can only be overcome with the help of a ladder.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 7

Robinson Crusoe hides food supplies and things in a tent, turns a hole in the hill into a cellar, spends two weeks sorting gunpowder into bags and boxes and hiding it in the crevices of the mountain.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 8

Robinson Crusoe sets up a homemade calendar on the shore. Human communication is replaced by the company of the ship's dog and two cats. The hero is in dire need of tools for excavation and sewing work. Until he runs out of ink, he writes about his life. Robinson works on the palisade around the tent for a year, breaking away every day only to search for food. Periodically, the hero experiences despair.

After a year and a half, Robinson Crusoe ceases to hope that a ship will pass by the island, and sets himself a new goal - to arrange his life as best as possible in the current conditions. The hero makes a canopy over the courtyard in front of the tent, digs a back door from the side of the pantry leading beyond the fence, and builds a table, chairs and shelves.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 9

Robinson Crusoe begins to keep a diary, from which the reader learns that he finally managed to make a shovel from “iron wood”. With the help of the latter and a homemade trough, the hero dug his cellar. One day the cave collapsed. After this, Robinson Crusoe began to strengthen his kitchen-dining room with stilts. From time to time the hero hunts goats and tames a kid wounded in the leg. This trick does not work with chicks of wild pigeons - they fly away as soon as they become adults, so in the future the hero takes them from their nests for food.

Robinson Crusoe regrets that he cannot make barrels, and instead of wax candles he has to use goat fat. One day he comes across ears of barley and rice that have sprouted from birdseed shaken out on the ground. The hero leaves the first harvest for sowing. He begins to use a small part of the grains for food only in the fourth year of life on the island.

Robinson arrives on the island on September 30, 1659. On April 17, 1660, an earthquake occurs. The hero realizes that he can no longer live near the cliff. He makes a whetstone and tidies up the axes.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 10

An earthquake gives Robinson access to the ship's hold. In the intervals between dismantling the ship into pieces, the hero fishes and bakes a turtle on coals. At the end of June he falls ill; Fever is treated with tobacco tincture and rum. From mid-July Robinson begins to explore the island. He finds melons, grapes and wild lemons. In the depths of the island, the hero stumbles upon a beautiful valley with spring water and arranges a summer house in it. During the first half of August, Robinson dries grapes. From the second half of the month until mid-October there are heavy rains. One of the cats gives birth to three kittens. In November, the hero discovers that the fence of the dacha, built from young trees, has turned green. Robinson begins to understand the climate of the island, where it rains from half February to half April and half August to half October. All this time he tries to stay at home so as not to get sick.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 11

During the rains, Robinson weaves baskets from the branches of trees growing in the valley. One day he travels to the other side of the island, from where he sees a strip of land located forty miles from the coast. The opposite side turns out to be more fertile and generous with turtles and birds.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 12

After a month of wandering, Robinson returns to the cave. On the way, he knocks out a parrot's wing and tames a young goat. For three weeks in December, the hero builds a fence around a field of barley and rice. He scares away the birds with the corpses of their comrades.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 13

Robinson Crusoe teaches Pop to speak and tries to make pottery. He devotes the third year of his stay on the island to baking bread.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 14

Robinson is trying to put a ship's boat washed ashore into the water. When nothing works out for him, he decides to make a pirogue and cuts down a huge cedar tree to do it. The hero spends the fourth year of his life on the island doing aimless work hollowing out the boat and launching it into the water.

When Robinson's clothes become unusable, he sews new ones from the skins of wild animals. To protect from the sun and rain, he makes a closing umbrella.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 15

For two years, Robinson has been building a small boat to travel around the island. Rounding a ridge of underwater rocks, he almost finds himself in the open sea. The hero returns back with joy - the island, which had previously caused him longing, seems sweet and dear to him. Robinson spends the night at the “dacha”. In the morning he is woken up by Popka's screams.

The hero no longer dares to go to sea a second time. He continues to make things and is very happy when he manages to make a smoking pipe.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 16

In the eleventh year of his life on the island, Robinson's supplies of gunpowder are running low. The hero, who does not want to be left without meat food, catches goats in wolf pits and tames them with the help of hunger. Over time, his herd grows to enormous sizes. Robinson no longer lacks meat and feels almost happy. He completely dresses up in animal skins and realizes how exotic he begins to look.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 17

One day Robinson finds a human footprint on the shore. The trace found frightens the hero. All night he tosses and turns from side to side, thinking about the savages who have arrived on the island. The hero does not leave his house for three days, fearing that he will be killed. On the fourth day, he goes to milk the goats and begins to convince himself that the footprint he sees is his own. To make sure of this, the hero returns to the shore, compares the footprints and realizes that the size of his foot is smaller than the size of the print left. In a fit of fear, Robinson decides to break the pen and loose the goats, as well as destroy the fields with barley and rice, but then he pulls himself together and realizes that if in fifteen years he has not met a single savage, then most likely this will not happen and henceforth. For the next two years, the hero is busy strengthening his home: he plants twenty thousand willows around the house, which in five or six years turn into a dense forest.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 18

Two years after the discovery of the footprint, Robinson Crusoe makes a trip to the western side of the island, where he sees a shore strewn with human bones. He spends the next three years on his side of the island. The hero stops improving the house and tries not to shoot, so as not to attract the attention of savages. He replaces firewood with charcoal, and while mining it he comes across a spacious, dry cave with a narrow opening, where he carries most of the most valuable things.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 19

One December day, two miles from his home, Robinson notices savages sitting around a fire. He is horrified by the bloody feast and decides to fight the cannibals next time. The hero spends fifteen months in restless anticipation.

In the twenty-fourth year of Robinson's stay on the island, a ship is wrecked not far from the shore. The hero makes a fire. The ship responds with a cannon shot, but the next morning Robinson sees only the remains of the lost ship.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 20

Until the last year of his stay on the island, Robinson Crusoe never found out whether anyone had escaped from the crashed ship. On the shore he found the body of a young cabin boy; on the ship - a hungry dog ​​and a lot of useful things.

The hero spends two years dreaming of freedom. He waits another hour and a half for the arrival of the savages to free their captive and sail away from the island with him.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 21

One day, six pirogues with thirty savages and two prisoners land on the island, one of whom manages to escape. Robinson hits one of the pursuers with the butt and kills the second. The savage he rescued asks his master for a saber and cuts off the head of the first savage.

Robinson allows the young man to bury the dead in the sand and takes him to his grotto, where he feeds him and arranges for him to rest. Friday (as the hero calls his ward - in honor of the day when he was saved) invites his master to eat the killed savages. Robinson is horrified and expresses dissatisfaction.

Robinson sews clothes for Friday, teaches him to speak and feels quite happy.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 22

Robinson teaches Friday to eat animal meat. He introduces him to boiled food, but cannot instill a love for salt. The savage helps Robinson in everything and becomes attached to him like a father. He tells him that the nearby mainland is the island of Trinidad, next to which live wild tribes of the Caribs, and far to the west - white and cruel bearded people. According to Friday, they can be reached by a boat twice the size of the pirogue.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 23

One day a savage tells Robinson about seventeen white people living in his tribe. At one time, the hero suspects Friday of wanting to escape from the island to his family, but then he is convinced of his devotion and himself invites him to go home. The heroes are making a new boat. Robinson equips it with a rudder and a sail.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 24

While preparing to leave, Friday stumbles upon twenty savages. Robinson, together with his ward, give them battle and free the Spaniard from captivity, who joins the fighters. In one of the pie, Friday finds his father - he, too, was a captive of savages. Robinson and Friday bring the rescued people home.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 25

When the Spaniard comes to his senses a little, Robinson negotiates with him for his comrades to help him build a ship. Over the next year, the heroes prepare provisions for the “white people”, after which the Spaniard and Friday’s father set off for Robinson’s future ship’s crew. A few days later, an English boat with three prisoners approaches the island.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 26

English sailors are forced to remain on the island due to low tide. Robinson Crusoe talks with one of the prisoners and learns that he is the captain of the ship, against which his own crew, confused by two robbers, rebelled. Prisoners kill their captors. The surviving robbers come under the command of the captain.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 27

Robinson and the captain punch a hole in the pirate longboat. A boat with ten armed people arrives from the ship to the island. At first, the robbers decide to leave the island, but then return to find their missing comrades. Eight of them, Friday, together with the captain's assistant, are taken deep into the island; Robinson and his team disarm the two. At night, the captain kills the boatswain who started a riot. Five pirates surrender.

"Robinson Crusoe" summary of chapter 28

The captain of the ship threatens the prisoners with sending them to England. Robinson, as the head of the island, offers them pardon in exchange for help in taking possession of the ship. When the latter ends up in the captain's hands, Robinson almost faints with joy. He changes into decent clothes and, leaving the island, leaves the most evil pirates on it. At home, Robinson is met by his sisters and their children, to whom he tells his story.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Robinson builds another boat, smaller, and tries to go around the island

Another five years passed, and during that time, as far as I can remember, not
no emergency events occurred.
My life proceeded as before - quietly and peacefully; I lived in the old place
and still devoted all his time to work and hunting.
Now I already had so much grain that my sowing was enough for
whole year; There were also plenty of grapes. But because of this I had to
work both in the forest and in the field even more than before.
However, my main job was building a new boat. This time I
not only made the boat, but also launched it into the water: I took it out into the cove along
a narrow canal which I had to dig for half a mile.
My first boat, as the reader already knows, I made such huge
size, that he was forced to leave it at the site of construction as a monument
my stupidity. He constantly reminded me that from now on I need to be
cleverer.
Now I was much more experienced. True, this time I built a boat
almost half a mile from the water, since I couldn’t find a suitable tree closer, but
I was confident that I would be able to launch her. I saw what was going on
the work this time does not exceed my strength, and I firmly decided to bring it to
end. For almost two years I fussed over the construction of the boat. I'm so passionate
I wanted to finally have the opportunity to sail the sea, which I did not regret
no work.
It should be noted, however, that I did not build this new pirogue at all for
to leave my island. I had this dream for a long time
say goodbye. The boat was so small that there was no point in even thinking about sailing across.
it is the forty or more miles that separated my island from the mainland.
Now I had a more modest goal: to go around the island - and
only. I have already been to the opposite bank once, and the discoveries
that I did there interested me so much that even then I
I wanted to explore the entire coastline around me.
And now that I had a boat, I decided no matter what
began to go around his island by sea. Before I set out, I carefully
prepared for the upcoming voyage. I made it for my boat
a tiny mast and sewed the same tiny sail from pieces of canvas,
of which I had a fair supply.
When the boat was equipped, I tested its performance and was convinced that under
She sails quite satisfactorily. Then I placed it on the stern and on
small boxes in the bow to protect provisions, charges and
other necessary things that I will take with me on the road. For the gun I
hollowed out a narrow trench in the bottom of the boat.
Then I strengthened the open umbrella, giving it such a position that
it was above my head and protected me from the sun, like a canopy.

Until now I have taken short walks on the sea from time to time, but
never strayed far from my bay. Now that I intended
to inspect the borders of my small state and equipped my ship for
long voyage, I carried there the wheat bread I had baked, the clay
a pot of toasted rice and half a goat carcass.
On November 6 I set off.
I drove much longer than I expected. The point is that although my
the island itself was small, but when I turned to the eastern part of it
coastline, an unexpected obstacle appeared in front of me. In this place from
the shore is separated by a narrow ridge of rocks; some of them stick out above the water, others
hidden in the water. The ridge extends six miles into the open sea, and beyond
The sandbank stretches like rocks for another mile and a half. In the way that
To go around this spit, we had to drive quite far from the shore. It was
very dangerous.
I even wanted to turn back because I couldn’t decide
exactly how far I will have to travel on the open sea before I round
a ridge of underwater rocks, and was afraid to take risks. And besides, I didn't know
Will I be able to turn back? So I dropped anchor (before leaving
on the way, I made myself some kind of anchor from a piece of iron
hook I found on the ship), took the gun and went ashore. Having looked out
there was a fairly high hill nearby, I climbed it, measured the length by eye
rocky ridge, which was clearly visible from here, and decided to take a risk.
But before I had time to reach this ridge, I found myself on a terrible
depths and then fell into the mighty stream of the sea current. Me
it spun around as if in a mill sluice, picked it up and carried away. About to
there was no point in thinking about turning towards the shore or turning to the side. Everything, that
What I was able to do was stay close to the edge of the current and try not to get caught
to the middle.
Meanwhile, I was carried further and further. Be at least small
there was a breeze, I could have raised the sail, but the sea was completely calm. I worked
oars with all his might, but could not cope with the current and was already saying goodbye to
life. I knew that within a few miles the current I was caught in would
will merge with another current going around the island, and what if until then I
I won’t be able to turn aside, I’m irrevocably lost. Meanwhile I don't
I saw no way to turn around.
There was no salvation: certain death awaited me - and not in the waves of the sea,
because the sea was calm, but from hunger. True, on the shore I found
a turtle so big that he could barely lift it, and took it with him into the boat.
I also had a decent supply of fresh water - I took the largest
from my earthenware jugs. But what did this mean for the pitiful creature,
lost in a boundless ocean where you can swim a thousand miles without
seeing signs of land!
I now remembered my deserted, abandoned island as
earthly paradise, and my only desire was to return to this paradise. I
passionately stretched out his hands to him.
- O desert, which gave me happiness! - I exclaimed. - I will never again
not to see you. Oh, what will happen to me? Where are the merciless waves taking me?
How ungrateful I was when I grumbled about my loneliness and cursed
this beautiful island!
Yes, now my island was dear and sweet to me, and I was sad
to think that I must say goodbye forever to the hope of seeing him again.
I was carried and carried into the boundless watery distance. But although I experienced
mortal fear and despair, I still did not give in to these feelings and
continued to row without ceasing, trying to steer the boat north so that
cross the current and go around the reefs.
Suddenly, around noon, a breeze picked up. This encouraged me. But
imagine my joy when the breeze began to quickly freshen and through
half an hour turned into a good wind!
By this time I had been driven far from my island. Get up there
It's foggy, it would be the end for me!
I did not have a compass with me, and if I had lost sight of my island, I
I wouldn't know where to go. But, fortunately for me, it was a sunny day and
there was no sign of fog.
I set up the mast, raised the sail and began to steer north, trying
get out of the flow.
As soon as my boat turned into the wind and went against the current, I
noticed a change in him: the water became much lighter. I realized that the current
for some reason it begins to weaken, just like before, when it was
faster, the water was cloudy all the time. And in fact, soon I saw
to your right, in the east, are cliffs (they could be distinguished from afar by
white foam of the waves seething around each of them). These are the cliffs and
slowed down the current, blocking its path.
I soon became convinced that they not only slowed down the flow, but also
break it into two streams, of which the main one only slightly deviates towards
south, leaving the cliffs to the left, and the other turns sharply back and
heading northwest.
Only those who know from experience what it means to receive pardon while standing
on the scaffold, or escape from the robbers at that last minute when the knife
already put to my throat, he will understand my delight at this discovery.
With my heart beating with joy, I sent my boat into the opposite stream,
set the sail to a fair wind, which refreshed him even more, and merrily
rushed back.
At about five o'clock in the evening I approached the shore and, looking for a convenient
place, moored.
It is impossible to describe the joy that I experienced when I felt under
solid ground!
How sweet every tree of my blessed island seemed to me!
With hot tenderness I looked at these hills and valleys, which only yesterday
caused melancholy in my heart. How glad I was to see my fields again,
your groves, your cave, your faithful dog, your goats! How beautiful
the road from the shore to my hut appeared to me!
It was already evening when I reached my forest dacha. I climbed over
fence, lay down in the shade and, feeling terribly tired, soon fell asleep.
But what was my surprise when someone’s voice woke me up. Yes,
it was the voice of a man! There was a man here on the island and he shouted loudly
in the middle of the night:
- Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe! Poor Robin Crusoe! Where did you end up, Robin?
Crusoe? Where did you end up? Where have you been?
Exhausted by the long rowing, I slept so soundly that I could not
I could wake up immediately, and for a long time it seemed to me that I heard this voice in a dream.
But the cry was insistently repeated:
- Robin Crusoe, Robin Crusoe!
Finally I woke up and realized where I was. My first feeling was terrible
fright I jumped up, looking around wildly, and suddenly, raising my head, I saw on the fence
your parrot.
Of course, I immediately guessed that it was he who shouted these words:
in exactly the same plaintive voice I often said these very phrases in front of him, and
it hardened them perfectly. It used to sit on my finger, bring its beak closer to
my face and laments sadly: “Poor Robin Crusoe! Where have you been and where are you going?
got it?"
But, even after making sure that it was a parrot, and realizing that, in addition to
parrot, there was no one to be here, I couldn’t calm down for a long time.
I didn’t understand at all, firstly, how he got to my dacha,
secondly, why did he fly here and not to another place.
But since I didn’t have the slightest doubt that it was him, my
faithful Popka, then, without racking my brains over questions, I called him by name and
extended his hand to him. The sociable bird immediately sat on my finger and
repeated again:
- Poor Robin Crusoe! Where did you end up?
Popka was definitely happy to see me again. Leaving the hut, I planted
onto his shoulder and carried it away with him.
The unpleasant adventures of my sea expedition took me away for a long time
I wanted to sail the sea, and for many days I thought about the dangers that
was exposed when I was carried into the ocean.
Of course it would be nice to have a boat on this side of the island, closer
to my house, but how to bring her from where I left her? go around mine
island from the east - just thinking about it made my heart sank and
The blood ran cold. How things are on the other side of the island, I had no idea
no idea. What if the current on the other side is as fast as
on this one? Couldn't it throw me onto the coastal rocks with the same
the force with which another current carried me out to the open sea. In a word, although
building this boat and launching it cost me a lot of work, I
decided that it was still better to be left without a boat than to risk it because of it
head.
I must say that now I have become much more skillful in all manual
works that were required by the conditions of my life. When I found myself on the island,
I didn’t know how to handle an ax at all, but now I could, on occasion
pass for a good carpenter, especially considering how little there was
I have tools.
I also (quite unexpectedly!) made a big step forward in pottery:
built a machine with a rotating circle, which made my work faster and
better; now, instead of clumsy products that were disgusting to look at,
I got some very good dishes with a fairly regular shape.
But never, it seems, have I been so happy and proud of my
ingenuity, like the day I managed to make a pipe.
Of course, my pipe was of a primitive appearance - made of simple baked clay,
like all my pottery, and it didn't turn out very pretty. But she
was strong enough and allowed smoke to pass through well, and most importantly, it was
after all, the pipe that I dreamed about so much, since I was used to smoking with a very
a long time ago. There were tubes on our ship, but when I was transporting
things from there, I didn’t know that tobacco grew on the island, and decided that it wasn’t worth it
take them.
By this time I discovered that my supply of gunpowder was beginning to noticeably
decrease. This alarmed and saddened me extremely, since I was new
There was nowhere to get gunpowder. What will I do when I succeed?
all the gunpowder? How will I hunt goats and birds then? Am I really through
my days will I be left without meat food?

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